


and end, an end (but it's not an

by burritosong



Series: a place in me you can call home [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Injury Recovery, Lack of Communication, M/M, Panic Attacks, Retirement, viktor is yuuri's trophy husband, yuri's complicated relationship with skating/winning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29303712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burritosong/pseuds/burritosong
Summary: Yuri Plisetsky is the most decorated skater of his age and he's on his way to becoming the most-decorated skater of all time. That's all anyone needs to know about him. He's the best, the first, the record to beat. He's spent years remaking himself over and over again in order to be champion. Yuri Plisetsky is great. Until he isn't.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri & Victor Nikiforov & Yuri Plisetsky, Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Otabek Altin/Yuri Plisetsky
Series: a place in me you can call home [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2204640
Comments: 10
Kudos: 73





	1. the end

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place at least ten years post-series. I recommend you not try to hard to pinpoint an exact year because I certainly didn't. This fic is complete, and will updated about every three days so you won't have to wait too long in between chapters. I've tried to include content notes at the beginning of each chapter, but please let me know if I've missed anything. Fic and chapter title from "The End" by MisterWives.
> 
> I owe a big thank you to eeveestho for being my rubber duck and letting me talk and yell at him about this fic for the last three months, and for just being supportive in general. I also want to thank madseason, and jessicamiriamdrew for cheerleading me through this process and holding my hand. This is my biggest project to date, and I certainly put them all through it as I've worked on it.
> 
>  **Content notes:** While this fic does deal with injury recovery at the beginning nothing is described in detail, things are kept fairly vague, and it is not the primary focus of the fic. The focus on depression is heaviest at the beginning and lessens as the fic goes on. There is a scene where a character eats and feels sick afterwards that can be skipped. It starts at "He spends a day in bed" and ends at "The feelings are still there." There is one incidence of a panic attack, but it is not super detailed and can be skipped. It starts at "Yuri isn't angry at Otabek" and ends at "That's okay too".

These are the things the world knows about Yuri Plisetsky:

  1. He has 962 thousand followers on social media.
  2. He broke records with his senior debut, and he's continued to make and break records in the seasons since.
  3. He is the most decorated skater that is still competing, and with every medal he gets closer to being the most decorated skater of all time.



These are the things no one knows about Yuri Plisetsky: 

  1. He keeps a picture in his wallet of his favorite skater.
  2. He lost his virginity to his best friend when he was twenty-two.
  3. Everything hurts, all the time, and sometimes he just wishes it would stop.

* * *

Yuri is used to pain. He knows it intimately. He knows when the pain is good and needs to be pushed through. He knows when the pain is bad and needs ice and painkillers and doctors and therapy. He's had more injuries than he can count. He's never been afraid of being injured. Injuries have always been a part of his art, an inevitability on his path to being the best.

But this time is unlike every other time.

He hits the ice and as the pain blooms he somehow knows this injury is different. He lays on the ice staring up at the ceiling as the rest of the rink comes to a stop. Yakov comes over saying something that Yuri can't quite focus on. Not that there's any point in listening to Yakov anymore. He wants to get up and leave the whole thing behind him—the take off that's second nature to him, the jump that he's done thousands of times, the crash into ice that's as familiar to him as his bones.

Yuri closes his eyes, because he can't get up and walk away, and allows himself to be overtaken by some unnameable emotion.

* * *

Yuri sits in a hospital bed as a doctor trots out his options.

This one will allow him to get back on the ice faster, but it's a temporary fix and after the season is over he'll need surgery and physical therapy. Depending on how his practices and competitions go, he might not even be able to get through the season. He'll still miss valuable practice time and won't be ready for the start of the season. He'll have to take it slow.

They can do surgery now, but he'll have a longer recovery time and will miss most—if not all—of this season, but he'll be able to come back strong next year. Probably. Maybe. Most likely.

There's something about chronic injuries, his back and his knees and his hips. Since he's already going to be out of commission, it's a chance to fix problems that he's put off. Little inevitabilities that come with a sport that consists of hurling your body into the air and landing on hard ice on a single blade. He wonders if he could have his body replaced with something less traitorous. His head on a robot body that won't break down and betray him.

For some reason none of the options, robot body included, do anything but remind Yuri of how felt lying on the ice after his fall. He feels paralyzed by the decision, and he can't figure out why.

They have to wait for the swelling to go down before they operate, so if Yuri needs time to think it over he can. But for all his indecision, Yuri doesn't need time. He doesn't do slow and he doesn't do maybe. He overhears Yakov talking to the doctor in the hall, and while their voices are too low for Yuri to make out the words, their tone of voice says everything he needs to know.

When the doctor comes back to ask if he's made up his mind Yuri tells him to do the surgery, to fix everything that can be fixed, because it means he'll be able to come back stronger.

_Better._

The words come easily but the lie of them tastes bitter in his mouth. It doesn't matter what they say or how the surgery goes. He already knows he isn't going to come back from this.

He just can't figure out why.

* * *

Someone leaks the video of the practice session and Yuri's fall.

He lies in bed recovering from surgery, high on painkillers, and watches it over and over and over again. There are over a thousand views and at least half of them have to be just from him. His phone blows up—calls, texts, social media notifications. He gets tired of the constant pop up notifications from mentions and messages so he turns off his notifications. But then he can't stop opening his social media apps to see what people are saying about him, so he just deletes them.

Otabek calls and when Yuri doesn't answer he texts. Yuri types up a response— _I'm fine, just recovering_ —then deletes it. He tries again— _I've been better_ —before deleting that too.

Eventually, he just turns his phone off and goes to sleep.

* * *

He's had his own place for a few years, even though his training schedule means he spends more time at the rink and in hotels than at his own home. Sponsorship and prize money and appearances mean that Yuri's not hurting for money, but there's no one there to help him after his surgery and he doesn't have an extra place for someone to sleep there anyway. Lilia and Yakov both live in buildings without elevators, so he ends up staying with Viktor and Yuuri. They're both retired now, with too much time on their hands and too many dogs, so he stays in their stupidly big penthouse and follows the doctor's orders. He takes it easy, laying around and watching bad daytime TV with dogs perched all over his bed, wincing when they jump off too vigorously, all while the disgusting duo hover over him clucking.

He still hasn't called Otabek.

Eventually he heals enough that he can limp around Viktor and Yuuri's spacious penthouse on crutches. He starts rehab, another slow and necessary step to return to the rink. He's never had a problem following whatever instructions he's been given to get back on the ice, but something about this time is different. Everyone tells him he's had a much better outcome than was expected, but his every day is filled with a horrible grinding dread and he can't figure out why.

Yakov and Lilia call, but the conversations are short and stilted. He's doing his exercises, since he never competed with the programs he was working on they'll just retool those for his comeback. He feels good, he says to them, about his return next season. There's nothing out of the ordinary about it, he's had injuries before that required time off. But something about the call leaves an uncomfortable pit in Yuri's stomach.

The pit is exacerbated by the fact that Viktor and Yuuri keep treating him with kid gloves. One night he limps into the living room and hears a score being announced. It's a Grand Prix event, probably Internationaux de France but Yuri isn't actually sure, and he's struck by the fact that that isn't something he ever thought he'd have to wonder about. The figure skating season has always been so inseparable from his day to day life, but he's somehow managed to avoid it so completely over the last few months that he can't even remember the order of the events schedule.

As soon as they realize he's standing there they change the channel and invite him over to watch a movie. He limps back to his room where he pulls up the stream on his phone just in time to see Otabek take the center ice. He throws his phone at the wall. And then a pillow. And another pillow. He keeps grabbing things and throwing them without caring about the noise until he runs out of things within arm's reach and only realizes afterward that he was also yelling.

Yuuri cautiously mentions talking to someone over breakfast the next day while Yuri does violent things to his eggs with his fork.

"We're just worried about you," Yuuri says, ignoring the carnage on Yuri's plate. "It's an adjustment, getting used to life after—"

"After _what_ , Katsudon?"

"When you spend your whole life working for something, it can be...hard to get used to not doing it. When Viktor—"

" _I am not Viktor._ " Yuri stands up and takes his mostly untouched plate to the sink. "For one thing, I still have my hair."

"That's not what I—"

Yuri doesn't wait to hear what he has to say before leaving the room.

He isn't Viktor. He proved that with his senior debut, and he's proved it every season since. Viktor had to ignore everything but skating in order to establish his career. Yuri's heard him go on and on about how before he met Yuuri all he'd had was skating, that he'd ignored life and love in favor for success. But Yuri's made time for things. Just because his life doesn't revolve around one person, like Viktor and Yuuri, doesn't mean skating is all he has. He has thousands of followers. He has Otabek. His life is full, or at least it was.

Now his life is bad soap operas and missed phone calls.

* * *

When Yuri's finally strong enough to go home to his empty apartment Viktor and Yuuri offer to help him home, but he waves off their assistance. After months of being smothered by them he's ready to finally be left alone. They beg him to stay longer, but he's already stayed longer than he wanted and he's regained enough of his strength that they can't stop him from packing up his stuff and leaving.

He regrets it briefly and intensely, as he huffs his way up the stairs to his apartment. After one flight of stairs he has to give up on even carrying his bags up, and he ends up dragging them up the stairs behind him. He has to abandon one halfway up, and it takes him so long to finish the trip up to deposit his one bag at his door and then go back down for the one left behind, that he's surprised it's still there.

When he finally shuts the door behind him he collapses on the floor and contemplates just sleeping there for the night. His entire body _hurts_ but not in the way it used to. This is a new pain, a weak pain, and Yuri hates being weak.

It's that thought—and that thought alone—that has him peeling himself off the rug and staggering to his feet. As tired as he is, it feels good to be home in his own space.

He drags himself to his bed, where he immediately falls asleep.

* * *

He wakes up bright and early, mostly because he forgot to shut his curtains before bed and his room's window is positioned to let in the absolute most obnoxious morning light. Yuri covers his head with his pillow so he can go back to sleep. But he's always been a light sleeper, and now that he's awake there's no way he can fall asleep.

His apartment is mostly how he left it. Someone—Yuuri or Viktor—had come by at some point, washed the dirty dishes that Yuri had left behind on his way to practice and washed the dirty laundry that had been living on Yuri's bedroom floor. He chafes at the idea of one or both of them in his apartment, looking at and touching his things.

Whoever it was that was in his apartment, they hadn't taken care of the lone plant in Yuri's apartment, and Yuri glares at it as he enters his living room. But then his gaze snags on the shelf in the corner, the one that displays all his medals and trophies.

He can remember each and every single performance that led to each and every single one of those medals. He was supposed to add more to them this year. NHK and Rostelecom. The Grand Prix Final. Nationals. Euros. Worlds. His programs for this year were perfect. Or, at least, they would have been.

_He_ would have been perfect.

The next thing he knows, the sun has shifted and it's sometime in the afternoon.

He puts the dead plant in front of his medal shelf, a collection of dead things that just seems to keep on growing.

* * *

Yuri has some feelings.

The biggest one is hate, for all of the other feelings, and for the fact that he has them in the first place. He's determined to not think long enough about those other feelings to identify them. And without a name for those other feelings, the only thing he has to focus on is his hate.

He doesn't know what to do now that he doesn't have an outlet for these feelings he doesn't want to have. Usually when he feels a thing he takes it to the rink to work out whatever he's feeling on the ice, but that isn't an option.

Not anymore.

_What do people_ do _with their feelings?_

He spends a day in bed, watching the soap operas he got hooked on at Viktor and Yuuri's. He eats chocolate and cookies and ice cream straight out of the container. He throws things at his laptop.

It doesn't make him feel any better

He spends the next day sick to his stomach from all the crap he ate the day before.

The feelings are still there. He thinks they might be getting worse.

On the third day he lies on the couch and stares at his medals. They sit there, shiny in their mockery. He wants to do something with them—throw them away, or burn them. He could box them up, he thinks. He gets as far as actually obtaining a box, snatched away from some neighbor just moving in down the hall. He puts it down in front of the shelf, gets some tape.

He can't bring himself to touch them.

He hates them, but he can't even get rid of them.

He leaves the medals where they are and goes back to bed.

* * *

He tries keeping up with the season, he really does. But for some reason watching skating makes his stomach turn and reading about it yields basically the same result.

For the first time in his life, Yuri doesn't know how he feels about skating.

Well, the thought of it makes him nauseous and clammy and lightheaded. But that probably doesn't mean anything.

So the season slips past him, mostly unnoticed, and eventually Yuri finally gets cleared to start training again. Well, he can get on the ice but no jumping and nothing too strenuous, but still. Training.

He goes to the rink and puts on his skates and starts at the very beginning, running through skills he's had down for years. He's never had a problem with working on the basics before, it's part of the reason why he's been able to remain so dominant for so long. But it's different this time. For some reason, he can't seem to bring himself to care about getting back to where he was, and he starts showing up late to practice and then he starts skipping and then he stops going at all.

His voicemail starts to fill up with angry messages from Yakov and Lilia.

He's restless, but he can't bring himself to go back down to the rink. He stays home in his bedroom, and when he goes from his bedroom to the kitchen he turns his head so he doesn't have to look at his medals. His skates sit unused by the door and he does his best to avoid looking at them as well.

He knows he has to do something, but the thought of putting on his skates and going on like nothing has changed makes his stomach sour. Nothing is the same anymore. He just doesn't know why.

* * *

Instead of going back to the rink and putting his skates on, or calling up Yakov and Lilia to apologize, he buys a ticket to Almaty. He texts Otabek before the plane takes off and then immediately turns off his phone. It's been almost a year since they last talked. He doesn't know what he's going to do once he gets there, or if Otabek will even be at the airport to pick him up. He doesn't even know why he's going to Kazakhstan instead of going back to work, which is what he has supposedly been waiting to do all this time.

When he lands, Otabek is there waiting at baggage claim. Yuri's heart lurches and he realizes in that moment just how much he's missed Otabek. He has a million things he wants to say, and he knows he owes Otabek one hell of an apology, but he's never been very good at apologizing. He's running through several variations of _Sorry I've been a shitty boyfriend, at least I hope we're still boyfriends_ in his head when Otabek leads him to a fucking puce sedan of all things and all apologies fly out of Yuri's head.

"What the fuck is that?"

Otabek pauses from where he's loading Yuri's suitcase into the trunk.

"It's a rental," he says matter-of-factly.

"It's hideous. I'm not getting in that. Where's your bike?"

Otabek shuts the trunk and self-consciously rubs the back of his neck. "I wasn't sure if you'd be able..." he trails off, looking sheepish.

Yuri is angry. About the ugly car and Otabek apparently just being fine with being ghosted for almost a year and about other things he definitely does not want to think about. He stomps to the car and wrenches the door open and slams it shut, leaving Otabek standing alone.

"I'm sorry," Otabek says when he finally climbs in the driver's seat.

There are too many things Yuri wants to say, like _why are you sorry?_ , _you're not the one who ignored his boyfriend for a year_ , _I'm the one who should be sorry_ , and _you're not the one whose career might be over_. But he bites all of it down and instead says, " _Fuck_ you."

Otabek reaches for him. "Yura—"

Yuri swats Otabek's hand away and stares resolutely out the window. "Can we just go?"

* * *

They don't talk about it. Otabek has never been one for long conversations, preferring long stretches of quiet punctuated with the occasional grand speech, and Yuri has never been one to talk about his feelings, and they'd have to do both of those things in order to talk about it. Instead, Otabek invites Yuri to stay for a while and Yuri mentions he has a return ticket waiting but doesn't specify the date.

It takes Yuri a bit longer to climb the stairs to Otabek's small apartment than it did the last time he visited, and Otabek has to carry up his luggage for him, but he makes it up without too much of a production. Otabek orders food for them to eat when it becomes clear that there is no way Yuri is going to drag his ass back down and then up the stairs again, which eating out would require. They eat at Otabek's cramped kitchen table, knees knocking into each other like always, and it almost feels like the last few months haven't happened if Yuri ignores the confused looks Otabek keeps shooting his way when he thinks Yuri isn't looking.

* * *

They fall into a routine. There aren't lazy mornings spent lounging in bed, because Yuri's never been good at being lazy and Otabek still has to train. Still, it's the off-season so Otabek has more free time than usual. They go sightseeing and shopping and Yuri eats foods that he gave up years ago. When Otabek does go to the rink, Yuri stays in the apartment and does his PT stretches and rehab exercises until the boredom gets to be too much and then he goes to wander the city. Otabek always invites him to come along with him to the rink, but Yuri lies and claims he hasn't been cleared to skate yet, that he left his skates back in Russia, even though his skate bag sits quite obviously by Otabek's door untouched. Yakov and Lilia call and Yuri lets the calls go to voicemail and then deletes the messages without listening to them. Eventually, they stop calling. There's a very small window of time left, if Yuri wants to come back and be anything like he was.

The date for his return flight comes and goes. He's not sure what he's waiting for.

* * *

_Yuri Plisetsky is dead._

That's the joke on all the figure skating forums. Yuri clicks through them obsessively on Otabek's laptop one night when he can't sleep. It isn't the first time he's found himself perched on Otabek's couch while the other man sleeps in the next room, reading the internet rumors and speculations about what might have happened to him since his fall almost a year ago.

_Yuri Plisetsky is dead._

They aren't wrong. Yuri used to be all over social media, he was once the most-followed figure skater after Phichit Chulanont, but he hasn't been heard from in over a year. His accounts sit ignored, gathering dust and losing followers, and his coach and rink mates don't discuss him in interviews.

_He never actually retired_ , several of his Angels comment furiously. _He's probably just training in secret preparing for his explosive comeback._

There's compilation videos. Highlight reels of his career bests. _Yuri Plisetsky's Best Biellmanns_ , (he's never going to do a Biellmann again), _Yuri's Top 10 Costumes_ (he only agrees with half of the list), _Worst Figure Skating Falls_ (he's in that one, smack dab in the middle—mediocre, and that's one thing that Yuri's never—)

"Yuri?" Otabek's sleep-rough voice comes from the doorway, startling Yuri. "What are you doing up?"

Yuri hunches over Otabek's crappy old laptop, as if he can shield Otabek from seeing what he's looking at. "Nothing. Just go back to bed. I'm working on something." He queues up another video, _Yuri Plisetsky First Olympic Gold FS_.

"What are you doing here, Yuri?"

"I'm just going to watch some videos until I'm tired. It's fine."

Otabek reaches over and shuts the laptop. "No, Yuri. Why are you _here?_ "

Yuri looks up, indignant that Otabek's interruption, but at the sight of Otabek's face his tirade dies out before it can even begin. "I just...wanted to look at some videos," he says lamely. He knows it's not the answer that Otabek wants, but he doesn't think he even knows the answer himself.

"I had to find out from the internet that you were hurt—I didn't even know until after you'd already had surgery. You wouldn't answer my calls, you didn't answer my texts. I had no idea if you were even okay. And then you text me that you are coming here and you act like nothing has changed. _But it has_." Otabek isn't yelling, but Yuri almost wishes he were. He's known for a while that Otabek's been angry, he's been gearing himself up for an argument, readying himself for an explosive fight. He can handle yelling. What he didn't prepare for was how sad Otabek looks, how lost he sounds. It makes something that Yuri's been trying to ignore for months start to boil.

"People kept asking me, _how is Yuri? Have you heard anything about Plisetsky?_ and I couldn't even answer because I didn't even know. Do you even know how hard it was going through the season without knowing what you were doing? Without knowing if you were even okay?"

Yuri isn't angry at Otabek but there's something boiling in him and if it's not anger then he doesn't know what it is, and it's Otabek that he lets it loose on.

_"Well I'm sorry that this has been so hard on you!"_ Yuri pushes the laptop aside and stalks away because he needs space, except Otabek's apartment is small and he runs into a wall. He feels suddenly claustrophobic in the small space, jittery and out of control. With nowhere to go he turns his emotions back onto Otabek. "You're not the one who had to do months of physical therapy just to be able to walk around without crutches. You're not the one who's had to sit around listening to everyone speculating about their career for months. You still get to skate—you have gold medals—you're probably going to go to the Olympics again—you get to skate..." Suddenly, Yuri can't breathe. "You can still skate," he says, blinking back tears as he struggles to take a breath. His heart is pounding, like he's just run for miles, but he hasn't gone anywhere. He tries to take a breath, and then another one.

He's shaking, he realizes suddenly. And crying, too.

Wordlessly, Otabek guides Yuri to the couch.

"Yura," he says gently. " _You_ can still skate. You can still skate...if you want to."

"I...of course I want..." Yuri swallows, but he still can't seem to make the words come out. "I want..."

He thinks this would be so much easier if Otabek would just get angry at him.

"If you don't want to skate," Otabek says slowly, deliberately, "that is okay too."

"I..."

Yuri slowly deflates, leaning into Otabek. Suddenly, he's very tired. "I don't know what I want to do." It's a lie. He knows. Maybe he just didn't want to admit it earlier, or maybe he really didn't know. But he knows now. He just can't say it.

"That's okay too."

* * *

Yuri wakes up alone the next morning. He somehow slept through Otabek's requisite five alarms. He thinks Otabek has practice, and with him gone Yuri can't quite bring himself to get out of bed, and he finds himself falling back into deep sleep for several hours. It's a first for Yuri, who's usually an early riser, and when he finally drags himself out of bed in the afternoon he's disoriented and nursing the greatest post-cry hangover he's ever had.

He stumbles into the kitchen and pours himself a glass of water that he downs in a single gulp.

And then another.

And another.

He puts the glass down on the counter definitively and thinks about the feeling that welled up in him when his body went crashing into the ice all those months ago. He names it in his head.

_Relief._

He was relieved. Because he knew then, in that moment, that it was over. _He_ was over. Or, he could be if he wanted. It was an out, and maybe he hadn't been waiting for one or wanting one, but it was an out and he hadn't had one before.

He tries out the words he's been wanting to say for months.

"I don't want to skate anymore."

The sentence hangs there in the stale afternoon air, mammoth and life-changing. He doesn't know what's supposed to come after it.

Yuri pours himself another glass of water and then goes to take a shower.

After, he dries his hair, braids it, and pins it up in a gentle circlet. He stands there, looking at himself in Otabek's shitty bathroom mirror. His body's changed over the last year, now that he isn't spending his every waking moment training for the next competition. But he still looks like himself. Himself, but changed. He doesn't know if it's better, but it can't hurt to find out.

He thinks about the words that have been haunting him. Idle speculation about the trajectory of his life from people who have no idea what it is to live your life for one thing and one thing only.

_Yuri Plisetsky is dead._

He's never been afraid of throwing himself away, trimming away the parts of himself that haven't been needed to succeed, of reshaping and changing himself as needed until he's been reborn into something new. He's done it again and again on the ice. He can do it again now.

Yuri Plisetsky will live again.

* * *

The walk to the rink where Otabek trains isn't long, but Yuri feels every step of it. He's out of shape, and tired from the night before, but mostly it's torturous because he knows when he gets there he's going to have to apologize and he's not sure if he deserves Otabek's forgiveness.

He gets a few curious glances as he enters, but there certainly isn't a mob of people assailing him asking for an update. He's not sure how he feels about that.

Otabek is working through a step sequence, something new that Yuri hasn't seen before. It tugs at his heart, though he's not sure if it's because he misses the feeling of his skates cutting through the ice or because he's only just now realizing how much of Otabek's life he's missed out on over the last year. Or maybe it's just because it's _Beka_ and there's always been something about him that's always left Yuri feeling a little breathless, a small frisson of thrill that's existed since before they were ever even together.

Otabek's coach Elena excuses herself with a knowing look when they notice Yuri standing by the boards. Otabek stays on the ice, standing mid-rink with his arms crossed across his chest, and Yuri is just glad it's a private practice so there's no one else around to witness his humiliation as he crosses over to him. He steps carefully on the ice so that he doesn't slip and fall on his ass. It has the added benefit of prolonging how long it takes to reach Otabek, and Yuri keeps his eyes on him as he walks trying to memorize every line of Otabek's body.

When he finally reaches him, Yuri wishes he'd thought to bring his skates, because with Otabek still wearing his and Yuri in just sneakers, Otabek absolutely towers over him and Yuri absolutely did not need anymore help feeling small today.

"Your edges need work," he says instead of a greeting.

Otabek's mouth quirks downward and shit, this isn't how Yuri wants this to go at all. Old Yuri would have just continued on critiquing Otabek's skating, but this is a new Yuri and there needs to be parts of him now that aren't just skating.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I know I've been a crappy boyfriend."

"You have," Otabek agrees.

"You don't deserve that. I've just been going through...things. And that's not an excuse but you deserve to know why. I just—" Yuri stops. Swallows. Throws himself away and tries again. "I don't think I want to skate anymore." He can't bring himself to look Otabek in the eye, so instead he focuses his gaze squarely on Otabek's shoulder. It isn't that hard, damned height differences. He takes a deep breath and continues, because Yuri Plisetsky doesn't do things halfway and he's determined to see this through no matter how hard it hurts. "I know you probably want to break up."

"Why would we break up?" Otabek asks harshly.

"Otabek, I can't skate anymore—"

Otabek bursts into laughter. "I'm sorry, Yura," he says when Yuri looks at him offended. "I don't love you because you skate—"

Yuri's brain short-circuits. In all the years they've been together neither of them has ever said it aloud. "Wait, you love me?"

"I do," he says, as if he's explaining the most obvious thing in the world to Yuri, and pulls him towards him. "And it doesn't have anything to do with your skating. I love you and I want you to be happy."

Yuri feels his chest unfurl. "I love you too, Beka," he says, folding into the familiarity of Otabek's embrace. There's still so much for him to figure out now that he's acknowledged he isn't going back to skating. But it feels good to know that at least he can count on this.

* * *

For so long Yuri's life was just skating. He didn't exactly ignore everything else, but everything else came after that, secondary to the ice and what he did on it, Otabek included. Now that there isn't skating Yuri doesn't know what to do with himself and he busies himself by rearranging Otabek's apartment and cleaning and cooking to the best of his, admittedly poor, ability.

"Perhaps you need a hobby," Otabek suggests after Yuri has finally become a nuisance.

"I don't need a hobby," Yuri argues, aggressively scraping the remnants of their burned breakfast from Otabek's sole pan.

Otabek gives him a long look and okay, yes. Maybe Yuri does need a hobby.

* * *

"This article here says you can be a chess grandmaster in eight to ten years," Yuri says when Otabek drops into the stands next to him.

With the season approaching, Yuri's begun coming to Otabek's practices just so he can actually get some time with him. Otabek very politely hasn't said anything about the fact that Yuri brings his skate bag every time but has yet to set foot on the ice.

Otabek takes a gulp of his sports drink and then gives Yuri a hard look. "Have you ever played chess before?"

Yuri doesn't look up from his phone. "I could learn," he argues, as he aggressively closes the sixteen tabs he had open in his browser about how to play chess.

"Have you ever considered something not competitive?"

"What kind of hobby is not competitive?"

Otabek is silent for a long while. "Quilting, maybe."

Yuri hums and types _how to make the best quilt_ into his search engine.

* * *

Most of the time when Otabek is practicing Yuri sits in the stands and curates Otabek's social media accounts for him. Otabek already had the accounts—he even had the apps installed on his phone—he just never actually used them. So Yuri just...fixes that for him.

_New step sequence_ , he types as a caption to accompany a video of said bit of choreography. Otabek's edges could still probably be better in this segment, but he's improved enough that it's worth sharing.

Otabek's phone chimes a moment later and Yuri swipes open the notification. _@yuri_plisetsky would do it better_ , the comment reads. Yuri eyes his skate bag, sitting inconspicuously at his feet. _Could_ he do it better? A year ago, that wouldn't have even been a question. But now, Yuri feels the weight of the expectations of this faceless internet stranger settle heavily on his shoulders. Maybe he could do it better. But he doesn't think he needs to. Not anymore.

More importantly, he doesn't think he wants to.

* * *

Still, a person can't spend most of their life in the rink without missing it when they walk away. Which is how Yuri finds himself lacing up his boots one afternoon while Otabek is off getting fitted for his costumes for the season. It's that strange, in-between time when the rink seems to be transitioning from more serious skaters to more casual ones. There's a few young kids with their parents, some older kids who are clearly skipping school to fool around on the ice, and some clearly more experienced skaters moving around them.

Yuri steps onto the ice and takes a breath. He's more than recovered enough to return to the ice, but somehow it feels like he's disobeying some sort of rule by being there. It's stupid—he's kept up with the recommended PT exercises he was given. He should be more than fine for this. He takes another breath. And then he skates.

He makes one lap around the rink, and then another.

Muscle memory whispers at his brain, reminding him of how to move even when his out of practice body doesn't quite want to cooperate.

He pauses, leaning against the boards to catch his breath for a moment. It's more exertion than he's used to, but it isn't the exertion alone that's making it hard for him to breathe.

He doesn't know what he's doing. He'd decided he was done with this—and yet here he is, on the ice—skating.

_Why the fuck is he even here?_

He registers, suddenly, that someone is talking to him.

"Sorry, I only speak Russian," he says. " _And English_ ," he adds, as an afterthought.

"Oh, sorry," the woman says in Russian this time. "Sorry to interrupt you. But I was wondering if you had time to help my daughter? She wanted to skate, but I don't know how."

Yuri looks over at the daughter in question. She's too young to be in school—and probably too young to even be walking, but what does he know about kids—and clinging to the boards with wide eyes looking desperately at his skates like they're made of gold.

He wants to say no, but he doesn't have anything else to do, and that's how he finds himself coaching a very small six year-old through the basics for the rest of the afternoon. Yuri never manages to actually learn her name, but by the time her mother drags her away so they can go home for supper she knows enough to skate around confidently.

He wants to skate more when they leave, but he's exhausted in a way he hasn't been in a long time, so he instead heads over to where he left his guards at the boards and then drags his tired body over to the seats where he left his skate bag. He blames his exhaustion as the reason why it takes him a long moment to realize that Otabek is sitting there next to his bag.

"How long have you been here?"

Otabek shrugs. "A while."

Yuri wishes he had it in him to stand there, towering over Otabek for a little bit longer, but he doesn't, so he just sags down into the seat next to him and starts unlacing his skates.

"I'm not competing," he says.

"Okay."

"I just wanted—" What _did_ he want? "I just wanted to see how it felt."

"Okay."

"It doesn't mean anything." Yuri hates how his voice has gone shrill, but he can't seem to keep his emotions in check.

_"Yuri."_ Otabek reaches over and stills Yuri's hands from where they're loosening his laces. "It's _okay_."

Yuri finally drags his eyes away from his skates to look Otabek in the eye. He feels shaken and unsteady.

"You don't have to compete to skate."

Yuri looks away. "I don't...think I know how to do that," he admits. He thinks that maybe, when he first put on skates, that it was just for fun. But that was so long ago, that he can't even begin to imagine going back to that. What was skating without the medals? Who was he without his victories? If he stripped away all of his accomplishments, what would be left of him?

When Otabek doesn't say anything, Yuri goes back to unlacing his skates. He takes them off, switches out his guards for soakers, puts them into his bag, and puts on his street shoes.

"I can't tell you how to do that," Otabek says finally. Yuri understands. For Otabek, the ice is still ever-present. It's his calling. He can't comprehend giving it up, and Yuri wouldn't want him to.

Yuri zips up his bag. "Can you just let me figure it out?" Yuri has to trust that Otabek knows what he means, that he understands that Yuri's asking for patience, because he doesn't know how to ask for it out loud.

Otabek shoulders Yuri's bag and takes his hand. "Let's go home, Yura."

* * *

The next time Otabek has practice, Yuri goes. He laces up his skates, snaps a picture of them on his feet, contemplates posting it and then contemplates o8deleting it, and the next thing he knows Otabek is asking him if he's ready to go.

Yuri looks down at the skates on his feet, then up at the ice.

He takes his skates off.

* * *

Otabek and his coach are having a particularly rough practice session when Yuri finally sets foot on the ice again. He runs through simple skills while Otabek trips on his own feet and steps out of spins and takes a nasty fall on his hip, and then he lounges against the boards and shouts out very unhelpful words of discouragement until Elena calls it quits for the day. Otabek punches the ice in frustration.

Back at home they take turns showering, and then Otabek ices the hip he fell on while Yuri burns their dinner. They eat on Otabek's small couch, and then Otabek takes their dishes to clean while Yuri braids his hair. When he's done he turns to rest his arms on the back of the couch and watches Otabek dry and put away the dishes. Otabek's shirt rides up as he reaches to put away a glass, revealing the ugly bloom of a bruise from his fall at practice. Yuri watches his familiar movements, something warm beginning to burn in the pit of his stomach.

"What do you want to do?" Otabek asks as he's finishing up. "We can do whatever you want, as long as you don't make me watch _Cutting Edge_ again."

It's an old, good-natured argument that they've been having at least once a week in the months since Yuri's been in Almaty. Yuri doesn't ever want to stop having it.

But right now, he doesn't want to fight about old figure skating movies.

"Let's go to bed, Beka."

Otabek frowns. "I don't have practice until late tomorrow, we can stay up. Oh, but if you're tired I can just read—"

"I don't want to go to sleep," Yuri says. And then, because it's been over a year, because they've been playing house all this time but nothing more, he gets more specific. "I want to fuck you."

Otabek's eyes get comically wide for a brief moment. "Oh."

Yuri worries for a moment, when Otabek doesn't immediately agree, that maybe this is something they've lost somewhere between all the phone calls Yuri didn't answer and the frustrations Otabek's had.

But then Otabek crosses the small distance from the kitchen to the couch and kisses Yuri. It's a searing, passionate thing that isn't like any of the other sweet, tender kisses they've shared over the last four months.

"Okay, let's go to bed," Otabek says when it finally ends.

It takes a moment for Yuri's brain to restart and process what he's said, but then he's stumbling up and pulling Otabek to their room.

* * *

Otabek gets assigned to the Rostelecom Cup and the Internationaux de France.

"Rostelecom's going to be a bloodbath," Yuri says, scrolling through the list of who's been assigned where. "But you got a lucky draw with France. With who you're skating against, you could win it in your sleep."

Otabek hasn't asked Yuri to come along and Yuri hasn't offered to accompany him. Otabek _has_ agreed to take a very long detour to St. Petersburg on the way to Moscow to pick up some of Yuri's things and bring them back, even though there isn't exactly any extra space in the tiny apartment for more stuff. Yuri's still living out of his suitcase, not because Otabek won't yield closet space to Yuri, but because there isn't any closet space to give. Otabek had chosen his apartment for its proximity to the rink, not for its spaciousness, and it's a tight fit for two grown men and Yuri's shopping habits.

"Your free leg's sloppy," Yuri adds. Otabek's just finished a run through of his free skate.

"You're not my coach, Yura," Otabek says as he skates up to the boards.

"Your free leg is sloppy," Elena says.

And then, because Yuri's been watching Otabek slog through this same routine for weeks and he knows he can do it better he says, "Here, let me show you how it should look."

Otabek and Elena share a skeptical look that Yuri's already agreeing with, but because he's nothing if not a slave to his pride, Yuri skates out to center ice and forces his body to perform.

Yuri's always had a good memory for movement, and it's his saving grace now. Otabek's routines have always been technically challenging and Yuri is out of practice and out of shape. He doesn't even bother attempting the jumps—it's been a year since he's jumped and he's not about to land himself back in the hospital just because he's too prideful to admit when he's wrong—but he manages to drag himself through all of the other elements. It's the longest four and half minutes of Yuri's life.

When it's over, he lies panting on the ice covered in sweat and full of regret. His body already hurts in ways he'd forgotten it could. Otabek skates over and hauls Yuri to his feet and then hovers annoyingly close as Yuri forces his feet to move so that he can get off the ice and die in the stands.

"See?" Elena says as they pass her. "Plisetsky's so out of shape he can't even jump and even his free leg is still better than yours."

Well, Yuri can accept that.

* * *

The night before Otabek leaves for Russia he hands his apartment key over to Yuri, except it's not the familiar scratched up key that they've been passing between each other for the last few months when Yuri's needed to go somewhere without Otabek. This one is shiny only in the way unused keys are, and attached to a little tiger keychain.

"This isn't your key," Yuri says obviously.

Otabek shrugs and goes back to packing. "I thought you might want your own. Since you keep almost losing mine."

It's the flimsiest excuse Yuri has ever heard because he's always been exceedingly careful with Otabek's key since he's only ever had one and losing it would mean being locked out of the apartment.

Yuri swallows around the lump that's suddenly appeared in his throat.

"This tiger looks angry," he finally chokes out.

"I thought it looked like you."

Yuri smiles and cradles the angry little trinket in his hand.

* * *

With Otabek gone, Yuri suddenly has too much free time on his hands. It's only a few days but Yuri is like a spoiled house cat, and after half a day he's already wasting for attention. He watches _The Cutting Edge_ and then _The Cutting Edge: Going for the Gold_. He cooks, and then eats his weirdly bland food.

He's filled with a strange, electric energy that he can't name. He does some stretches, and then some more. Finally, he grabs his skate bag and heads down to the rink.

He's spent enough time sitting in on Otabek's practices that the rink in Almaty is familiar. He laces up his skates and then closes his eyes and tries to remember what it was like when all he wanted to do was wake up and hit the ice. He feels like he's lost something, but he's not sure what exactly it is or if it's worth getting back.

Skating exhausts him in a way it didn't used to, and it has nothing to do with his lack of practice.

He goes through the motions of practice on the ice, but it doesn't do anything for the caged up, unnamed emotion sitting in his chest.

* * *

He tries to watch the Rostelecom Cup, he really does. He just—can't. He pulls up a stream, looks at the skaters circling the ice in warm up, and starts to feel the edge of a jittery, closed in feeling. So he turns off the laptop and rearranges Otabek's furniture several times. Everything finally ends up pushed against the walls, leaving an empty floor in the middle of the living room where Yuri sprawls on the cold floor.

He feels restless and he doesn't know what he wants to do about it.

He peels himself off the floor and starts to pace around in the small empty space he's made, but it's not enough to work through whatever it is that's bothering him, so he does what he used to always do when he was overwhelmed with emotions he didn't want to deal with.

He grabs his skate bag and heads back to the rink.

* * *

Yuri skates. He runs through a set of programs no one has ever seen and then he runs through all of the ones they have and then he just….skates.

Ever since he left home to train he's understood the weight of people's expectations and his family's needs and his grandfather's sacrifices. But his parents were never around and grandpa has been dead for years. He doesn't know who he has left to skate for now.

He thinks about the young boy with a soldier's eyes, the upstart fifteen year-old who knew he was going to make history, the man who entered his first Olympics already favored to win. He feels detached from all these different Yuris that he's been. He doesn't think he can ever skate like any of them again. Nor can he skate for the things they skated for. There is nothing of his life that resembles who he was or what he had before.

Nothing…. except Beka.

Beka, who whisked him away in Barcelona to ask him for friendship, who's been both rival and collaborator over the years, who seems to trust that Yuri has it within himself to find what he needs on his own.

Something starts to take shape in Yuri's mind. There's a feeling of something just out of his reach but he knows he can catch it now.

It's this feeling that he's chasing when he tries his first jump. He shifts his weight, moves his body, and then his blade leaves the ice.

And he comes crashing back down.

"Ow, fuck," he groans.

Well, it's a start.

He takes a quick inventory of himself, determines that nothing hurts in a way that warrants a trip to the hospital, and then gets up.

He breaks it down into smaller steps. The entrance into the jump, inside edge, swing his free leg to the front, arms in...

He lands, but just barely.

He shakes it off, and then he does it again.

It's the first time he's been able to feel any kind of rightness while skating since he was first cleared to start skating again. He wants to take the feeling and make it fully his own. He misses the days when the rink felt more like home than his own bed. It's something he's been chasing after, even if he hadn't realized it at first. Now, as he runs through his skills again, he feels like he's starting to take back something he hadn't even realized he'd been missing.

Yuri finally gets kicked out the rink fifteen minutes after it was supposed to have closed and he hobbles back home to ice his everything.

As sore as he is, he goes back the next day and the day after that.

* * *

By the time Otabek's flight gets in, Yuri's body is a litany of bruises and aches. He realizes, belatedly, when he's in the cab on the way to meet Otabek and Elena at the airport that he has no idea how Otabek actually did and has to look up the results as he's waiting for them.

"That's a lot of bags," he says, eyeing their luggage as they walk up.

Elena scowls at him over her armload of luggage. "This is all your stuff."

Yuri's pretty sure it isn't _all_ his stuff. He's sure Beka and Elena must have at least one bag each. He says as much and gets an armful of baggage shoved at him.

"I'm getting my own cab," Elena announces. "Altin, you get a day off, but then I want to see you first thing in the morning. Plisetsky, if you know what's good for you, you'll stay away from me for a long while."

The way she says it leaves Yuri feeling like he's coming into a conversation too late, and an important one at that.

"Did I...do something to her?" he asks Otabek.

"Don't worry about it," Otabek says, reaching over to take some of the baggage from Yuri. "Let's just go home."

* * *

Otabek eyes the apartment with some emotion that Yuri can't name but doesn't feel good as he enters the door.

"I see you've redecorated."

Yuri curses, realizing that he never put the furniture back after he pushed all of it against the wall.

"Uh, sorry?"

Otabek sighs, a sad and weary one that Yuri's never heard before.

"It's fine, Yura."

Yuri has the feeling that he's made a mistake, but he's not sure where the misstep is.

"I'm sorry," he repeats. "I'll fix it."

He drops the bags he's carrying and moves for the couch.

_"It's fine,"_ Otabek repeats in the way people say it when it definitely isn't fine. "I'm tired. You can fix it tomorrow."

He walks past Yuri to the bedroom, and a moment later Yuri hears the shower start.

Otabek is clearly angry, but about what Yuri has no idea. He checks the Rostelecom results again. Otabek Altin, third place. It's nothing to scoff at, especially given the depth of the field this year. Yuri knows Otabek's been struggling with his routines this year. Maybe he just isn't happy with his performance…?

Yuri glances towards the bedroom as the shower shuts off. The bedroom door is open, but something holds him back from going in. He sits on the couch and waits for Otabek to come out, to call him to bed.

In the bedroom, the light shuts off.

Yuri sleeps on the couch.





	2. this is me trying

Yuri wakes early after a restless night, and with nothing else to do, he goes out to buy breakfast. After whatever weirdness happened the night before, he isn't anxious to feed Otabek his terrible cooking. He buys all of Otabek's favorites and, with a renewed sense of purpose, rushes home to surprise him.

Otabek is already up when he gets back, pushing furniture to where it was before Yuri got his hands on it with something unnameable in the set of his shoulders.

"I brought breakfast," Yuri announces, giving the bag a little shake.

"I had a protein shake," Otabek says as he puts the coffee table back where it belongs.

He finishes righting the living room, and then trips over one of Yuri's bags and curses.

"I'm going for a run," he says, grabbing his sneakers from by the door. He ties them and then goes, leaving Yuri standing alone in the apartment with a bag of breakfast foods.

Yuri eats alone, washes the dishes, and then waits for Otabek to get back.

After two hours, he grabs his skate bag and heads to the rink.

* * *

Elena's there when Yuri arrives, and he considers leaving and going back home, but then he shrugs the urge away. It's not like she's his coach; he doesn't owe her anything, least of all his obedience.

Still, he does his best to stay out of her way. He doesn't want to make things any more awkward with Otabek than they already are.

He goes through the motions of practice, even though he doesn't know what he's practicing for. Without any clear focus, he begins to skate aimlessly, until he finally gives in and leaves the ice.

Elena approaches him as he's putting his skates away.

She stands over him, appraisingly, as he zips his bag up.

"What happened to you?" she asks as he stands.

He's not in the mood to be questioned, and even if he was he doesn't have to answer to her. He shoulders his bag and turns to walk away.

But Elena isn't done.

"You used to be this focused, driven person. And now what are you? Someone who sits around moping and ruining other people's careers. When did you become this person?"

Yuri wants to walk away, but he can't seem to bring himself to move.

"You were a champion. You used to inspire people. Now you're just dragging them down with you."

"And why the hell should you care about me?" Yuri snaps, turning to face her.

"I don't." Elena is uncowed by Yuri's anger. "But I do care how your actions affect my skater."

"Otabek's fine," Yuri insists, even as a small, nagging voice in the back of his head disagrees.

"Fine? He's been struggling since you landed yourself in the hospital. You're just too self-centered to realize it."

He has no idea if she's lying or not. Yuri's never had time to really watch how Otabek trains before. He's always been busy with his own skating. For all he knows, Otabek's recent awkward practice sessions are normal. But Elena does know what Otabek's practices are usually like. She's the one who's been by his side at every practice and competition since Otabek returned to training in Almaty.

Yuri thinks about Elena's reaction to him at the airport.

"You think he could have skated better at Rostelecom."

"Maybe," Elena shrugs. "Maybe not. There's no way to know. But he has been distracted for the last year, lacking focus in a way he never has before."

"I'm not responsible for Otabek! It's his job to manage himself. I can't do it for him."

Elena looks at him with pity. "You, Yuri Plisetsky, are a fool if you think that. And _you_ are ruining my skater."

She turns and leaves him standing there, skate bag heavy on his shoulders.

* * *

When Yuri gets home Otabek is sitting on the couch watching something on his laptop.

He doesn't say anything to Yuri.

Yuri leaves his bag by the door and goes to shower. When he gets out he discovers his hair dryer is broken. He flips the switch several times with no luck. He throws it down on the counter with a shout of frustration.

"I'm going out," he announces, even though Otabek hasn't looked up once from his laptop.

He buys a new hair dryer, and then he wanders the streets, trying to figure out if Elena was right when she had said he was ruining Otabek.

 _Is_ he ruining Otabek? Surely he would have said something if Yuri had pissed him off. He's never hesitated to call Yuri out before, so why would he suddenly start bottling up his issues?

Except...it's not as if things have been exactly normal between them.

The idea that Yuri might be the cause for Otabek's issues on the ice is...well, a nightmare. They've always supported each other and used the competition between each other to make themselves better. Yuri thinks back on their interactions over the last few months, dissecting them for any clues he might have missed.

Now that he's made up his mind about retiring, the idea of not retiring is unbearable. But if him being on the ice would help Otabek...

He starts listing out the pros and cons of returning to the ice, startling himself.

What is he doing? Elena was right. This isn't him. Making lists, second guessing his choices...what's wrong with him?

Yuri doesn't know what he should do, but he knows he's not going to drag Otabek down with him. He digs his phone out of his pocket and books a flight.

* * *

"I'm going back to St. Petersburg," he says when he gets back, heading straight for the bedroom to start packing. "I have some things I have to take care of."

He realizes how foolish it sounds, given that Otabek is freshly back from running Yuri's errands in Russia.

Otabek follows him, and then hovers in the doorway of the bedroom with an unreadable look on his face. "Anything in particular?"

Not really. Yuri just needs to get away from him as soon as he can. "You know, just stuff." He starts shoving things in his suitcase. There isn't much, since he's never really had the space to unpack, but he's filled with an uncharacteristic anxious energy and needs to do something. "I don't know how long it'll take."

"When do you leave?"

"Tomorrow night."

"I can take you to the airport—"

"Don't bother I'll just take a cab."

Yuri zips his bag, then unzips again. He puts his hairbrush in, and then puts it back on the counter in the bathroom. Eventually Otabek goes back to the living room, leaving Yuri alone to stare at his suitcase feeling like he's missed a step on his way down a staircase.

He can't leave Almaty fast enough.

* * *

Yuri takes a cab from the airport to his apartment, but it's weirdly empty and un-lived in. He only makes it halfway through unpacking before he's itching to escape it. He doesn't want to be seen at the rink so he goes to the only place he can think of where he's welcome if he's not skating.

Yuuri and Viktor very politely let him in when he shows up unannounced at their door. They catch up over tea, and Yuri asks detailed questions about what they've been up to since he left in an attempt to avoid talking about his own problems. But he eventually runs out of things to ask about and the conversation takes the inevitable turn to himself.

"As unexpected as it is," Yuuri says with a pointed look, "we're certainly glad you found the time to stop by." His expression is pleasant, but his words are dangerous, and Yuri suddenly realizes it was a mistake to come here. It might be easy enough to distract Viktor, but Yuuri's too smart to be tricked into talking about poodles for hours. "Especially since it's been so long since we've heard from you. What have you been up to?"

Yuri thinks about lying. They don't know anything about the last few months. It would be so simple to come up with some kind of story to keep them off his back, but a small part of Yuri needs to tell someone and he gives in to it now.

"I...uh. I went to Almaty. I've been staying with Otabek."

Viktor whistles. "Otabek's a good friend to let you stay for so long."

Yuri sighs. "Yeah, well it probably helps we're dating. At least, I think we're still dating." He's had more doubts about his relationship with Otabek over the last year than he's had in all the time they've known each other. 

"Wait, you're dating Otabek now? Yurio! That's so wonderful!"

Yuri gives Viktor a flat look, momentarily forgetting his problems. "We've been dating since I was twenty. Stop acting like this is news."

Except it clearly is news because Viktor looks confused, and even Yuri has to admit he's not that good of an actor.

"Wait, did you seriously not know this?"

"Viktor," Yuuri says gently, "We interrupted their date that one time."

The cogs in Viktor's head are clearly turning. "But...that was just them having dinner."

"Yeah," Yuri snaps. "A dinner date. That's why I said, 'Get out of here, you're crashing my date.'"

Viktor has the good manners to finally look repentant about it. "I had no idea..."

"That's because you're an idiot."

Yuuri coughs politely into his tea, but doesn't bother correcting him.

"But what do you mean you think you're still dating?"

Yuri feels a feeling. "Things have been...weird. Since I was injured."

"Is it because you ignored him for almost a year?" Yuuri asks.

Well. When he puts it like that.

"Uh...yeah."

"Yuri…"

"I didn't come here for you to butt into my relationship."

"Then why did you come here?" Viktor asks. "You left without so much as a goodbye, and then show up without any notice. If you were a stray cat, it'd be understandable—"

"Oh stop acting like you've ever understood what it's like to be me," Yuri snarls.

"Or you could stop acting like a rotten teenager," Yuri says, something dark in his eye. "You're an adult—act like it. You can't expect to drop in and out of Otabek's life whenever you want, and you can't go around treating everyone who cares about you like garbage without dealing with the consequences."

Yuri opens his mouth to retort but nothing comes out.

"No one's denying that you've been going through a hard time, but you can't keep mistreating the people who care about you. You have to think about how other people feel, too. You can't just take your problems out on other people without any consequences—"

Yuri pushes his cup away and stands. "Well _fuck you_ , Katsuki. You have no idea what it's like to be me."

He stalks off, intending on leaving altogether but has to turn to avoid tripping over a dog and his momentum instead carries him to the bathroom.

He slams the door behind him and stares at himself in the mirror, arms braced on the counter before him.

_Why the hell did he come here?_

He's got no idea.

Back in Almaty, he'd thought things were fine. He hadn't known exactly what he was doing but he'd thought things were fine. And then Otabek had come back from Rostelecom and he'd—what?

He'd panicked and he'd run.

He's never been scared of confrontation before, but suddenly when faced with Otabek's frustrations he'd retreated. And then he'd done it again just now with Yuuri. He's not the kind of person to run from a fight.

Or at least, he wasn't.

Now he doesn't know what he is.

There's a knock at the door. Yuri takes a deep breath before he opens it, expecting to find Yuuri coming to apologize for being mean, but he's surprised to find Viktor instead.

"We're going for a walk," Viktor says in a way that doesn't leave room for argument.

Viktor calls out a cheerful goodbye that hangs in stark contrast to the aggressive, angry atmosphere that hangs in the apartment before they leave.

They walk in silence for a while. Viktor's clearly waiting for Yuri to say something, but he's not in the mood to talk or humor Viktor. If Viktor wants to talk, _he_ can talk.

Finally, Viktor sighs.

"He's not wrong, you know," he says. His voice is soft and gentle, like he's placating a wild animal. "But neither are you."

Yuri just frowns and stares down at his shoes. He still can't feel anything but fight, but he can't figure out what to do with it.

"Yuuri is very smart," Viktor continues, "and he knows a lot more than people want to give him credit for, but he doesn't really know what it's like. He's always been surrounded by his family and friends. They've always supported him through the ups and downs of his career. He even got a college degree while training in a different country. He doesn't know what it's like, to wake up every day and have only one thing to focus on."

Yuri feels something uncomfortable curl in his stomach.

"He doesn't know what it's like to lose everything you—"

"I don't just have skating!" Yuri snaps. "Just because you don't know how to focus on more than one thing at a time doesn't mean I can't. I have Otabek—"

"Do you have Otabek though?" Viktor gives Yuri a look that chills him. It's cold and it's judgemental, and there's something there that Yuri doesn't think he's ever seen in Viktor's face before.

"Of course I do," he insists, even though he isn't actually sure he does.

"Do you deserve to?"

Yuri swallows hard, unable to answer. Of course he deserves him, a part of him wants to say. Why wouldn't he? But a much more insecure part of him isn't so sure.

"You're a very accomplished skater," Viktor goes on. "All of those medals, all those records...but it doesn't mean anything when you stop skating. All of those skills you have on the ice, they don't help you when you walk off the ice. The way we're trained teaches us to win, but it doesn't teach us anything about how to live life."

Yuri wants to be anywhere but here. He regrets coming back to St. Petersburg, regrets going over to Yuuri and Viktor's. He wishes he was somewhere else, but he doesn't know where else he has to go.

Viktor continues.

"I know my relationship may seem perfect—"

Yuri snorts.

"—it may seem perfect," Viktor repeats, "but the truth is, I had a lot to learn about being in a relationship, about how to love, when I met Yuuri. I had to learn how to communicate, how to support Yuuri. And then when I retired I had to learn how to live a life that wasn't completely controlled by figure skating."

Yuri looks over sharply. He hadn't thought that Viktor of all people would be the one to see through him.

"And how did you do that?" Yuri's surprised by just how fragile his voice sounds.

"Yuuri helped with some of it. The rest I had to figure out on my own."

"That must have taken a long time," Yuri drawls.

Viktor looks at him, but it isn't an admonishing or angry look. Instead, he just looks sad.

"It did," he says, surprising Yuri with his candor. "It's hard to find purpose when you've lived your whole life for only one thing. We're given so much support as long as we're bringing medals home, but once we're done everyone moves onto the next big name. It's hard coming to terms with the fact that you're so disposable."

"Is that why you're so obsessed with Katsudon?"

"I'm obsessed with Yuuri, because I love him and he's my husband," Viktor says. "But my life is more than just Yuuri. I have the dogs, I have friends, I choreograph, I commentate—"

"That's just figure skating."

"It isn't just figure skating. It's a way of still being a part of something that took up so much of my life, but it isn't consuming the way skating is. You have to find a way to fill your life without skating. That's the only way to be happy after you retire."

Viktor gives him a knowing look and Yuri hates this weird, insightful Viktor that he's stuck walking with.

"So you think I should retire?"

Viktor laughs. "I think you'll do what you want, just like you always have, and no one has any hope of stopping you. But," he says, with a dangerous look in his eye, "you will apologize to Yuuri when we get back."

"You can't make me do anything," Yuri snaps, more out of habit than anything else.

* * *

Yuri does apologize to Yuuri, who graciously accepts even though he probably shouldn't.

The three of them then spend the rest of the afternoon drinking and reminiscing about Yuri's time in Hasetsu, and then they drink some more and make a late night video call to Minako, and then Viktor and Yuuri drink some more while Yuri admits defeat and drags himself to their guest room so he can die in peace.

In the morning, Yuri finds a line of water bottles in front of the guest room door. He downs one while he stumbles to the bathroom to try to wash up.

He stares at himself in the mirror as he finger combs his hair.

As much as he hates to admit it, Viktor and Yuri are right. Elena was right, too. Yuri knows how to win, but with that taken away he doesn't know how to do much else.

Yuri doesn't want to be the reason Otabek has a bad season. They've always been able to motivate and inspire each other. There has to be a way for Yuri to keep on pushing Otabek, even if he isn't skating. And there has to be a way to make up for all the wrong he's done over the last year. He's determined to figure it out.

Yuri gives up on trying to comb the tangles out of his hair, and resigns himself to a messy, tangled bun. He pulls his hair up and fastens it with the elastic he always keeps on his wrist as a plan begins to form in his mind.

He's going to be a better boyfriend. He's going to be someone Otabek can rely on. He's going to stop feeling sorry for himself over a decision that he chose to make.

He goes back to the guest room and books a flight back to Almaty. He's done running. He's going to talk to Otabek and make things right or accept whatever consequences he deserves.

* * *

_Coming back tomorrow,_ Yuri sends to Otabek. He knows Otabek hates texting, but he doesn't want to find out whether or not Otabek would answer his call.

He gets a cab from the airport, carries his bag up the stairs, and only hesitates a moment before using his key to open the door.

Otabek's in the kitchen, cooking something that smells delicious.

Yuri carries his bag to the bedroom, a hopeful action masking the fact that he's a bundle of nerves.

He pauses for a moment in the doorway to the kitchen, not sure what to say.

"Hi," he says finally. "We need to talk."

Otabek must have heard him come in, because Yuri's voice doesn't seem to startle him.

"I'm cooking dinner. We can talk after."

"Yeah, okay."

Yuri leans against the counter and watches Otabek cook. He's in mismatched socks and an old t-shirt and Yuri wants to walk up and wrap his arms around him. He wishes they could stay in this moment forever, just the two of them in Otabek's too-small apartment, away from all of the problems from the last few years.

The irony that Yuri has been the cause for all of those problems is not lost to him.

"How was your trip?" Otabek asks after a moment.

"It was…" Yuri's not sure how to qualify it. "It was fine."

"Were you able to take care of everything?"

Yuri thinks about his talks with Yuuri and Viktor. "Yeah, I figured it out."

They sit at the same table where they've eaten countless meals over the last few months, but something in the air is different now. They've reached a turning point and Yuri worries that if they aren't able to work through it, it might break them.

He has to learn how figure skating fits into their lives for the first time in their relationship. Otabek has given Yuri all the space he needed to figure himself out. But along the way Yuri's forgotten to take care of Otabek in return, and it took a talking to from Viktor of all people for Yuri to realize it.

They eat in silence, and then Yuri takes the dishes from the table to wash and dry. He puts them away slowly, stalling because he doesn't know what Otabek's mind is. He should, he knows he should, but he doesn't.

That's his failing.

Yuri doesn't like failing.

When Yuri's done with the dishes he turns and catches sight of Otabek staring down at his hands on the table. He looks sad, and a little lost. Yuri did that.

"I'm sorry—"

"I shouldn't have—"

Their eyes meet and the pressure falls away. Yuri realizes how stupid he's been, making this all about him. Even when he realized there was a problem to be fixed, he had made it into a problem for _him_ to fix. But it's their problem, and they have to fix it together.

They both _want_ to fix it together.

He walks over and wraps his arms around Otabek.

"I'm sorry. I haven't been here for you. I should have realized how much you—how much I hurt you."

Otabek hugs him back. "You were going through so much. I didn't want you to worry about me when you had just lost everything you've worked for."

Yuri pulls away to look Otabek in the eye. "Beka, it's not like they stripped me of my titles just because I got hurt. Nothing was taken from me. I chose to leave it. Do you really think that I'd let anyone take something from me I wanted?"

Yuri's surprised by how true it is, by how much he means it. The more he talks about retiring, the more he knows it's right for him, even if he'd never thought about it before.

Otabek looks like he's very seriously considering the question.

Yuri whacks him in the shoulder.

"I would never let anyone take anything I wanted. I would kick their ass. You know this."

Yuri moves to pull the other chair around so that he can sit next to Otabek.

"You know me, Beka. You knew me from the moment you first saw me at that training camp. I'm not someone who's just going to crack at the first sign of pressure. Even if it takes me a while, I always get to where I want to go. I need you to stop treating me like I'm going to break."

"What happened in Russia?"

"What?"

"What happened in Russia?" Otabek repeats. "You are not the Yuri Plisetsky who left here."

Yuri sighs and tells him the truth. "Katsudon and Old Baldy kicked my ass."

Otabek frowns judgmentally. "You should be more respectful—"

"You're not the one who had to live with them for months. I'd like to see you be respectful after you've had to watch them make out every two seconds."

"You lived with them?"

"Yeah."

And this is part of the problem. They've never really talked about what happened between Yuri's injury and him arriving in Almaty. And it's something they needed to talk about much sooner than this.

"Yeah," Yuri repeats, starting over so he can do it right. "I stayed with them after my surgery. I needed help with...a lot. And I didn't have anyone else I could ask. So they let me stay with them for a while."

Otabek's silent, and it takes Yuri a moment to realize he doesn't know how much he's allowed to ask. And so Yuri tells him about his last practice session in St. Petersburg, the decision that lead him to where they are now. He tells him about his fits and feelings. The tears he cried and the tantrums he had. It's the first time he's really talked about it, and okay—Yuuri was right all those months ago. It does feel good to tell someone about it, even if Otabek probably isn't who Yuuri had in mind when he said it.

But Yuri isn't the only one who's gone through the experience. It takes a little prodding, but Otabek finally begins to open up about how worried he's been for Yuri over the last year and a half, and just how much he's been struggling over the last two seasons.

"I'm sorry, I never even thought of how all of this has affected you."

"Yura," Otabek says severely, "you have apologized more tonight than you have in all the years I've known you. Please stop. You're scaring me."

Of course the thing that worries Otabek enough to make him speak up immediately would be Yuri apologizing too much, rather than Yuri deciding to change his entire life.

Yuri says as much.

"You've always liked to do the hard things," Otabek says by way of explanation with a shrug.

He's not wrong.

* * *

Things don't change overnight.

Yuri still hates talking about feelings and Otabek still hates long conversations. Otabek had a rough start of the season, and a single conversation isn't going to magically fix all the things that have been wrong with his skating. Yuri still doesn't know where he's going to go from here, but he feels more grounded and more himself now that he and Otabek have opened up to each other.

Yuri continues to tag along to Otabek's practices. He and Elena largely ignore each other, but he thinks that his presence is being tolerated solely because Otabek has begun to show much more promise during his practices. Yuri's never had a chance to see Otabek in full swing before. Their long-distance relationship and rigorous training schedules meant that they had never before really had a chance to do any kind of serious practices with each other before. Now that Otabek is focused, Yuri's enjoying watching him.

When Yuri isn't busy being enamored by his boyfriend, he takes the time to practice on his own. He may never compete again, but that doesn't mean he's content to just sit on his ass. He thinks he can learn how to enjoy skating, even if he isn't winning medals anymore.

* * *

Yuri sees Otabek off at the airport when he leaves for the Internationaux de France.

"Don't bother coming back if you can't show me a gold medal," he says.

"Yes, I won't go home, to my own apartment, if I get anything less than gold," Otabek promises.

Behind him, Elena rolls her eyes and loudly clears her throat as she checks her watch.

* * *

While Otabek's in France, Yuri works on himself.

He also works on containing his crap.

He aggressively sorts and boxes things up. He hauls things off to donate, throws away what isn't worth rehoming, and carefully organizes what little he decides to keep. He clears Otabek's shelves and table and floors of his stuff and puts everything back as best as he can remember it looked before he exploded all over Otabek's life.

It's still too much.

He ends up with a box of things he can't stand to get rid of. But when he's done, Otabek's apartment is mostly restored to the way it was.

He rewards himself with a session at the rink where he finally begins to work out the answer to the question that's been hanging over him. It's something he's been working on, an idea he has that he's trying to make fully formed.

Up until now, it's been just out of reach. But Yuri doesn't do almost. He's going to grab it, whatever it is, and make it his.

* * *

He meets Otabek at the airport when he gets back, gold medal in tow. Yuri carries Otabek's bags up the stairs and throws open the door with a flourish.

Otabek's jaw drops as he walks in the door.

"Where...all of the stuff is gone."

"All of my stuff is gone," Yuri corrects. "I figured I should stop monopolizing the space and downsize, so I got rid of a few things." He's left a few things here and there, and there's a box in the corner of things he couldn't stand to part with but couldn't find space to display, but he's proud of how much he was able to clear out.

"A few things?" Otabek walks around wonderingly. "I can see the floor now."

"Okay, it was a lot of things. I think I might have a shopping problem."

Otabek raises an eyebrow. "Might?"

"You should see the bedroom," Yuri says over his shoulder as he leads the way. He puts Otabek's bag down on the bed, and then turns so he can see Otabek's reaction.

"Where are all of your clothes?"

"I've decided to be a nudist like Old Baldy."

"Viktor isn't a nudist. Really, Yuri. Where are your clothes?"

Yuri triumphantly opens his suitcase.

"What are those?"

"Space bags. You suck the air out of them with the vacuum and you can keep twice as much stuff in half the space."

"Yura, this is...incredible." Otabek's touched by the gesture, but he's not sure what brought it about. He knows his apartment is small, but he's tried his best to not complain about Yuri's things. "But...why?"

"I wanted to thank you. For letting me stay here. And, you know...for not dumping me when I was being an idiot. I love you, Beka."

Otabek pulls Yuri in and kisses him. "You're still an idiot. But I love you."

"Thanks."

Yuri cooks them a dinner of strangely elastic pasta and rubbery chicken, and then he drags Otabek to the rink.

"I just want to show you something," he says, handing his phone over to Otabek before he enters the ice.

Yuri isn't sure exactly when he started working on the program. It had taken shape out of failed practices and aimless skating. As far as routines go, it's probably the simplest one he's skated in a long time. The music is slow and sweet, a tender love song like nothing he'd ever use in a competition. But even though it's so different from what Yuri might have skated in the past, he puts all of himself into it.

 _I'm sorry for everything,_ it says. _I don't know where I'm going anymore, but I want to go there with you._

Yuri may not like talking about feelings, but he loves Otabek. It's just easier for him to tell him this way.

He finishes with his heart full of something unexpected, and he carries it with him as he skates back to Otabek.

"So," he says, "what do you think? It's not competitive, obviously. But—"

Otabek pulls him into a kiss before he can finish.

"You're happy."

Of course Otabek had understood. He'd understood Yuri from day one, and he understands him now.

Yuri smiles. "I am."

"Then I love it."

Yuri suddenly has an idea.

"I'm going to do it again," he says. "But this time, make sure you get it on video."

* * *

Yuri Plisetsky lives.

The video goes viral in under an hour. #HeLives starts trending.

After Otabek filmed his second run through, Yuri had posted the video on social media and it absolutely blew up. The internet was abuzz speculating over what it could possibly mean. Some people thought he was gearing up for a comeback, others thought it was a goodbye.

Yuri doesn't care what any of them think, but that doesn't stop him from reading through every single post he can find.

Inevitably someone figures out exactly what rink it is that Yuri's video was filmed at and he breaks the internet all over again. Social media erupts with speculation that he's on the outs with the Russian Federation, that he's training with new coaches, even that the reason he isn't competing this year is because he's waiting for his citizenship paperwork to process so he can compete for Kazakhstan.

Yuri's honestly shocked no one has actually shown up in Almaty looking for him.

They do apparently start blowing up Elena's phone though, and she angrily shows up at Otabek's one morning and demands Yuri handle the situation.

"You are not my skater. I am not dealing with any more of your mess," she says in a dangerously low voice.

Yuri's typing up a social media response before she's even gone.

 _My situation hasn't changed. If I have any news to share, you'll hear it from me first_ , he posts.

It feels inadequate and oddly formal, but he doesn't know what else to say. He's not ready, for whatever reason, to let the world know that he isn't going to return to skating.

_Please be respectful of others and don't harass them with questions about me._

It sounds like a joke, given that he's built his reputation on being anything but respectful. He's called the Russian Punk for a reason. But he has to hope it'll be enough, because it's all he's able to give them.

A few days later Yakov calls.

Yuri and Otabek are in the middle of lunch when Yuri's phone rings. His finger hovers over his phone screen, and he almost lets it go to voicemail, but he knows he owes it to Yakov to finally answer his call after all this time.

He steels himself, and then swipes to pick up.

"Hello?"

"Yuri." Yakov is clearly surprised that Yuri answered.

"Hi, Yakov." Yuri glances across the table at Otabek who is eating his lunch with more concentration than Yuri's ever seen him use in his life.

Yuri gets up and walks out to sit on the steps outside the apartment.

"I'm sorry I haven't...been in touch," he says. It's a weak apology. He owes Yakov much better than it.

"I saw your video," Yakov says. "It was fine. It can use some work but you look good and we can fix it. I know you needed...more time than we thought, but if you are healed, we can get back to work."

And this is it. The moment that Yuri's been avoiding since he was in the hospital, since before he even knew that he was ready to retire.

"I'm healed," he says. "But I'm not coming back."

Yakov is quiet. It means he already knows where this conversation is going. If he thought there was a chance of Yuri competing again he'd be yelling at Yuri, chastising him for taking so much time off, berating him for every little mistake in the video. Instead he's calm, their conversation nothing more than a formality of a fact they've both already accepted.

"You've done so much, Yuri. You may be out of practice, but with work you can still do more."

Yuri isn't sure why Yakov's bothering to pretend like they both don't already know he's over.

"I've done enough. I did what I wanted to do even if I didn't realize it at the time."

It's true, too. There's no one for Yuri to unseat but himself, and the only records that are left for him to break are his own. For a while, he'd been satisfied with doing just that. But it isn't enough anymore. He wants more from his life than a constant competition with himself and his own ability.

"I'm sorry it has to end this way, Yuri."

"I'm sorry, too," Yuri says. He isn't sure if it's the truth or a lie or somewhere in between, but he is sorry. "Thank you for everything you've done for me, Yakov."

Yakov grunts, a small old man sound that Yuri's heard so many times. He wonders if it's the last time he'll ever hear it.

"I'll tell Lilia. Goodbye, Yuri."

"Goodbye, Yakov."

Yuri hangs up, unsure of how to feel now that he's lost this part of his life. Somehow it hadn't occurred to him that leaving skating would mean leaving behind the people he's spent so much of his life with. He feels foolish, suddenly, for not talking to Yakov sooner. He owed Yakov better. Maybe, if he hadn't been so weak, they could have continued to have a relationship outside of skating, or at least had a better goodbye.

It takes him a moment to compose himself, and then he calls Lilia, not wanting to make the same mistake with her that he'd made with Yakov. It rings several times before going to voicemail. He tries again. Voicemail.

He wishes that he had known he was cutting his ties when he'd shut everyone out all those months ago.

Eventually the door opens and Otabek joins him in the stairs.

"How is Yakov?"

"He's fine." And then, because he can't avoid it, "I told him I wasn't coming back."

Otabek knows it. Yuri knows Otabek knows it. He's the only one who's known but it still scares Yuri to say out loud and he hates that it scares him because he's never afraid.

And because he feels foolish and scared and angry he asks, "Are we going to break up?"

He feels stupid asking it. They've already had this conversation but Yuri is filled, suddenly, with all the doubts and worries he hadn't let himself feel before. It feels like he's taken several steps backwards. He'd thought he was fine. He'd thought he was past this.

"Why would we… Do you want to break up?"

Otabek isn't looking at him. Yuri tries not to read into that fact, and fails.

"Do you?"

"Why would I want to break up?"

"All we've ever had is skating. What's left for us now?"

Finally, Otabek looks at him.

"We have more than just skating."

"You only love me because of my skating," Yuri points out. Or maybe it was his barre technique. But it was definitely something that he doesn't do anymore that had caught Otabek's eye. Without that, Otabek wouldn't care about him. Their entire relationship has been built on what Yuri doesn't do anymore.

"I don't love you because you skate," Otabek says emphatically. "I love you, and I love how you skate. But they aren't the same thing. You don't have to skate for me to love you. People love you for who you are, not what you do."

Yuri snorts. "You know that isn't true."

"It is."

"Then where is everyone?"

Otabek's quiet for a long while.

"If people walked away from you, it's because you pushed them away. It doesn't mean they only loved you for your skating. Yakov and Lilia—and Mila, too—they're just as sad about not having you in their lives as you are about not having them in yours."

"So what? Am I just supposed to apologize? Do you really think that'll make them like me again? Lilia won't even answer her phone when I call. I can't _fix_ this."

"Maybe not," Otabek says. "But that doesn't mean that they only cared about you because of your skating."

"I don't know who I am without—without skating," he admits. "All these months I've been trying to figure it out and I just end up back at the rink practicing because that's all I know how to do."

"I can't tell you what to be. But I'm not going to leave you just because you don't want to compete anymore."

Otabek's telling the truth and Yuri knows it. He's had so many chances over the last year to walk away or kick Yuri out of his life, but he hasn't. Yuri's grateful for it.

"What if you hate me?" he asks. "When I do figure it out."

"If competing against you all these years hasn't made me hate you, I doubt there's anything that could."

Well, he has a point.

"Good."

Yuri leans against Otabek and lets out a breath. He wonders if there's ever going to be a day when he stops moving backwards and returning to all these fears he's been trying to leave behind. He's always known what he's wanted and how to change himself to get it. He can't figure out why he can't seem to get it right now. But at least he knows Otabek is patient enough to stay by his side until he does.

* * *

There's kids at the rink.

Well, there's usually kids at the rink because Yuri's grown polite enough to stop crashing Otabek's private ice time, which means he's stuck going during public hours and that means usually there are at least a few kids there. He's learned to tolerate them, and that wasn't very hard because usually their parents or teachers are quick to point out that certain parts of the ice are reserved for people doing badass things with blades strapped to their feet. So he tolerates the kids. But they're not usually all over the place and after he almost decapitates one because they get too close to him, he decides that maybe there should be less kids at the rink.

"Hey," he says, grabbing an entirely different kid than the one he just almost killed, "where are your parents?"

"Not here."

The kid tries to wriggle out of his grasp but clearly they have no idea just how tenacious Yuri Plisetsky is.

"Are you in a class? Where's your teacher?"

Out of the corner of his eye Yuri sees a pair of kids collide and go crashing down on the ice screaming and crying. People start leaving the rink, not wanting to waste time skirting around the out of control kids running amok.

"Where is your teacher," Yuri repeats slowly, giving the kid his scariest look.

The kid points across the rink at a teenager leaning against the boards texting. It's the owner's niece. Yuri scowls and releases the kid.

"Stay here. Don't move. If you leave this spot I will kill you."

He crosses to the "teacher."

"Hey, your students are crying." He points over to the two still crying children. It's pointless because the girl doesn't even bother looking up from her phone.

"Hey, aren't you supposed to be teaching them?"

"They look fine to me," she says, without looking up.

Yuri wastes one of his best glares on her before giving up and turning to leave.

He almost runs over another kid and lets loose a bunch of words he definitely shouldn't be saying earshot of a child.

"Why aren't any of your parents here? _Come here._ " He grabs the kid by the arm. "Hey! If you're supposed to be in class get over here!"

Most of the kids stop what they're doing, and some of them even start skating over.

"I said come here!"

One by one, the kids skate over.

All except one.

"Uh...mister? You told me not to move…"

Yuri sighs. "You can move! Now get over here!"

Once the kid is close enough that Yuri doesn't have to yell to be heard he starts talking.

"Okay, those cones there mean you aren't supposed to skate there. That's where people do dangerous stuff. Stay outside those cones. And don't go zigzagging around. You have to pay attention to where you're going. It's rude to cut in front of people. You have to be aware of your surroundings. And stop screaming. People are trying to practice."

He gives them a mean look for emphasis.

"If I catch any of you acting like that again I'll cut your heads off with my skates. Got it?"

The kids all nod.

"Good. Now go sit by your teacher until class is over."

A few other skaters give him grateful looks as he skates away from the children.

Yuri does a few laps to clear his head, and tries to ignore it when several of the kids wander away from the group to follow him.

He ignores them when he goes back to practicing, even as the rest of the kids skate over to watch him.

Yuri's used to being watched. Even before he started competing people would find themselves unable to look away from him. But something in the kids' gazes unnerves him.

"What do you want?" He snaps, coming to a rude hockey stop in front of them and spraying them all with ice.

"Can you teach us how to do that?"

Yuri racks his brain trying to figure out which of the things he's done in the last few minutes the kid is referring to.

"Teach you how to do what?"

"That! With the ice!" A few kids wave their arms around in what Yuri deciphers as a demonstration of him spraying them with ice.

"A...hockey stop?"

The group in front of him erupts into a chorus of yes.

Yuri stares at them for a moment before admitting defeat. "Yeah, okay. Fine. I'll teach you how to ruin your blades. But that's it. After that you have to leave me alone, okay?"

Somehow one thing turns into another, and then suddenly the kids are all peeling away from him and taking their skates off and Yuri realizes that whatever class they were supposed to be in is over.

Yuri writes the entire thing off as one very weird day, and by the time the next week rolls by Yuri's all but forgotten about it until a kid runs up to him as he's putting his skates on.

"What are we learning today?"

Yuri stares at the kid's excited face and tries to figure out how to let them down easily.

"Kid, that's Yuri Plisetsky. He's not going to teach you anything."

The kid's face falls and Yuri glances over at the skater who just spoke, feeling something akin to murder in his gut.

"You know who I am?" he asks coolly.

They smile, nervously. "Um, yeah. Obviously."

"Well I have no idea who you are." The skater shuffles away looking mortified. Yuri finishes tying his skates with a feeling of satisfaction. "Come on, kid. Class is starting. Let's go get the rest of your friends so we can start."

He spends the next hour teaching the kids solely out of spite.

"See you kids next week," he says loudly, as they finish up, giving a pointed look at the rude skater from earlier.

It's not until he's gotten home that he realizes that it means he'll have to do it all over again, and he curses his way through dinner while Otabek politely listens and chews.

Two weeks later as he's leaving the rink, the manager waves him over to hand him an envelope.

He rushes home and interrupts Otabek mid-shower.

"Did you know—stop screaming, it's just me—did you know that you can get _paid_ to teach kids how to _skate?_ "

* * *

Two days before Otabek leaves for the Grand Prix Final, he's at the rink reworking his exhibition program.

"It looks fine," Yuri insists, not bothering to look up from his phone.

It really is fine. It isn't anything that Yuri would pick for himself, but Otabek skates it well and it shows off his skills while not being so challenging that it would be hard to do after the adrenaline of the competition has faded.

"What exactly is the problem with it?"

"There isn't a problem. It's fine." There really isn't any other word to describe it. "It just isn't..." Otabek trails off.

Yuri puts his phone down and gives his honest appraisal of it. "Yeah, no. Your exhibition routine is boring as hell," Yuri says. "Why don't you add some quads?"

Otabek gives him a flat look. "Nobody does quads in exhibition. It's not worth it."

Yuri's done quads in exhibitions before, just for the hell of it, but he also used to be an untouchable monster.

"Why don't you just make a new one?"

"I've thought about it," Otabek admits. "I just haven't been able to find any music I like for it."

Yuri immediately starts thumbing through his music app. "So you just need a song? And you can work from there as long as you have some kind of music?"

Otabek hums noncommittally, probably already sensing Yuri's deviousness.

"Because I know the perfect song, if that's all you need. Unless," he glances up from his phone screen, "you don't think you can handle it."

The challenge hangs heavily in the air between them. It's an old game they've played before, picking terrible music for each other's exhibition programs in a game of skating chicken.

"I can skate to anything you pick out."

Yuri hits play.

Otabek scowls. "I can skate to that," he insists.

"I also have some ideas for choreography."

Otabek visibly steels his resolve. "I said I can skate to that."

* * *

Otabek dominates in the Final, netting him his second Grand Prix championship.

Yuri watches it from the couch in Yuuri and Viktor's apartment, back in St. Petersburg for a few days on an apology tour to see what relationships he can still salvage and to pack up the rest of his apartment before moving out to Almaty for good. He wishes he could be there with Otabek to share in the moment. Instead, he's sandwiched between two old people and covered in dogs.

The next night they gather on the couch again to watch the winner's exhibition. As soon as Yuri takes a seat, all the dogs rush to sit on him. He halfheartedly tries to shove them away, even though he loves the fact that they've chosen him over Viktor.

"Ugh, gross. Get off."

Viktor gasps and clutches at his chest. "Yurio! Stop bullying our children!"

"Shut up, baldy!" Yuri yanks a pillow out from under a dog and throws it at him. "And stop calling me Yurio!"

"If you kids don't stop fighting I'll take away your allowances," Yuuri chides as he settles next to Viktor.

They talk easily as they wait for Otabek's turn as they watch the other skaters, and Yuri can almost pretend like he doesn't wish he were there getting ready to take the ice himself. He pushes that feeling aside as Otabek is announced and skates to his starting position.

The music starts, a pop track with heavy bass that's very different from the slow instrumental that Otabek had used for the first two competitions of the series.

"This is...an interesting choice for Otabek," Yuuri says, clearly confused by the sudden change.

Yuri snickers. "Oh, I picked the music."

"That was pretty mean."

He shrugs. "Beka likes that I'm mean."

On screen, Otabek prepares to go into the first jump.

Yuri screams.

Viktor sits up. "Did he just do a quad salchow?"

"Who even does a quad in an exhibition?"

"I did," Yuri and Viktor say at the same time. Yuri glares at Viktor.

"You helped choreograph this?" Yuuri asks. "You're brutal."

"It's not that hard," Yuri argues.

"But it isn't anything like what Otabek usually does."

"That's Beka's problem. He needs to be more flexible."

"Oh!" Viktor exclaims. "You made him use props!"

" _What?!_ " Yuri's head whips back around to the TV. "We didn't rehearse with any props..."

Yuuri's mouth drops. "He's...really getting into it."

Yuri covers his eyes, uncovers them, and then covers them again only to peek through his fingers. "I can't look. What is he doing?"

"Wow," Viktor says, eyes wide.

* * *

Yuri's phone rings a few hours later while he's lying in bed.

"Hey," he answers. "You were great."

"You think so?"

"I loved the props."

"I thought you'd enjoy that."

They fall silent, and Yuri feels every mile of distance between them.

"I miss you," he says.

"It's only been a few days."

"Oh, sorry. I wasn't aware there was a minimum amount of time that needed to pass before I was allowed to miss you."

"I wish you were here," Otabek admits.

Yuri's heart clenches. He can't imagine what it's like for Otabek, to be going through another season without Yuri there to compete against. He's still getting used to not competing himself, and he feels guilty for jumping into this change without any forethought.

"I'm sorry, Beka. I just...I don't think I can go back."

"That's not what I meant," Otabek says, and Yuri realizes that Otabek probably feels the distance just as keenly as he does. He reminds himself that there's more to love about him than just his skating.

They're both quiet for a few minutes.

"So what you're saying is you miss me too," Yuri says, needing to hear it out loud.

Otabek sighs. "Yes, Yura. I miss you, too."

A bit of tension unfurls in Yuri's stomach. For so long figure skating has been the third wheel in their relationship, and while it's still very much present, they're learning how they work with a little less of it in their lives.

"It would've been nice if we could have been celebrating your victory right now. Maybe..." He swallows and forces himself to be brave, because he's never been afraid of anything and he's not about to start now. "Maybe next time I'll come. I can cheer you on from the stands."

"I'd like that—if you want to."

"I would," Yuri says, and he means it.

He feels happy and content, and he wishes again that he were with Otabek right now, lying in bed and talking about this face to face because hearing Otabek's voice warms something in the pit of his stomach. He misses the warmth of his body and...other things.

"Mostly because I hate this," he continues. "Having all of this free time on my hands, and you're not here."

Otabek laughs. "You've grown spoiled in retirement."

"You love it."

"I love you."

"I love you." A beat, and then, "So what are you wearing?" He really does regret not going with Otabek. There are so many things he wants to do to him to celebrate his victory.

Otabek makes a scandalized sound. "You're at Viktor and Yuuri's."

"Yeah, so? What are you wearing?"

"Isn't their room right next to the guest room?"

"I can be quiet."

"You're never quiet." A pause. "Does the door at least lock?"

Yuri eyes the door that definitely does not lock from where he's lying in bed. "Yep. Already locked it."

Otabek sighs, and Yuri knows he's won.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading and for the comments, kudos, and bookmarks. Hopefully the next (and final!) chapter will be posted by Sunday.


	3. coming up for air

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for all of your comments, kudos, and bookmarks. It's been years since I've written anything, and this is the largest fic I've ever done. I'm grateful for all of y'all's feedback. Find me on tumblr @ burritosong.
> 
> Title from Misterwives' "Coming Up For Air".
> 
> **content note:** There is one part with some food shaming that starts "Yuri watches him while he eats." and ends with "She turns to go down to meet Otabek." It can be skipped.

Otabek gets home before Yuri, and he greets him at the door with a kiss as soon as Yuri walks in.

"Welcome home."

Yuri rolls his eyes. "You're just in a good mood because you won."

"Or maybe I'm just happy to see you."

Their eyes meet for a second before they both burst into laughter.

"So are you going to actually show me the medal or are you just going to strut around feeling good about yourself?"

"I can do both," Otabek calls over his shoulder as he goes to fetch his medal, taking Yuri's bag with him.

Yuri snorts and heads for the couch, but he stops halfway there when something in Otabek's bookcase catches his eye.

When Otabek returns with his medal, Yuri's standing in front of the bookcase.

"This is grandpa's menorah."

"I noticed you left it in a box, so I moved some things to make room for it. I hope that's okay."

Yuri had left it in the box when he'd been clearing out his stuff because at the time he hadn't been sure if they were going to be able to figure out this new dynamic in their relationship. Back in St. Petersburg it had lived perched on his dresser, where Yuri had always thrown his favorite souvenirs and sentimental tchotchkes, and Otabek had brought it back with him after Rostelecom, but Yuri had never been able to figure how it fit with Otabek's stuff. Yuri's been calling the apartment home for some time but seeing it now, nestled among Otabek's belongings, tugs at his heart. There are other things of his on the shelf too, but it's the menorah that's the gesture that matters most.

He finally turns to look at Otabek. "It's more than okay," he says. "Now let me see that medal."

* * *

True to his word, Yuri is right there in the stands when Otabek takes gold at Nationals.

It's strange at first. Kazakhstan doesn't have the depth of field that Russia does in every discipline, and so they don't even have a pairs or ice dance event. Yuri's always been busy with preparations for his own National Championship, so he's never had a chance to cheer Otabek on in person before. He sits in the stand, hoodie pulled down low, and hopes to avoid being recognized.

Yuri is far from the only one there cheering on Kazakhstan's favorite skater. Otabek's done a lot to improve the popularity of figure skating, especially with his appearance in the last Olympic Games, and his efforts have been rewarded with widespread support.

Yuri wasn't sure how he'd feel, watching Otabek skate while he sat out, but he thinks the fact that he would never have skated at Otabek's own National Championships helps any jealousy or bitterness that might have otherwise snuck up on him. Instead, he's able to just enjoy it for what it is, Otabek doing what he's trained for years to do, and when Otabek is crowned national champion he's free to lose himself in the crowd of cheers for him.

* * *

Yuri and Otabek spend Hanukkah—their first Hanukkah together—cozied in Otabek's apartment. Yuri makes latkes, trying his best to recreate his grandfather's recipe. There's a tiny tree, tottering on the corner of the TV table, because that was the only place to put it. Otabek has apparently always skipped out on having a tree for New Year's, claiming he's never had the space, but Yuri hadn't let him skip out on it this year.

Otabek's little apartment is home now, which means they're going to start making their own traditions. They started with the tree and Yuri teaching Otabek his grandfather's latke recipe.

Yuri's only just beginning to stretch into the new freedom he has away from the rink. It's uncomfortable. But uncomfortable isn't necessarily bad, and as Yuri says the blessings and lights the first candle he feels...something. He doesn't know what to name it, but compared to what he was doing at this time last year—laying around and feeling generally sorry for himself—it's good.

He tries to teach Otabek how to play dreidel but Otabek keeps giving him soft, tender looks that make him feel things, so Yuri chucks the dreidel at him.

It might not be how it's played traditionally, but Otabek adapts to the new rule quickly and throws it back.

Unlike Yuri, he hits his target.

* * *

Yuri wakes up one morning and realizes he misses dance class. Or maybe he misses the structure of it, the almost meditative movements combined with music, the uniformity of it that once allowed him a chance to forget himself.

He rolls over and drapes himself over Otabek.

"I'm going to take a dance class," he says.

Still mostly asleep, Otabek mutters something incomprehensible.

"Today," he elaborates. "I'm going to take a dance class today."

When Otabek doesn't respond, Yuri reaches over to grab his phone so he can find a drop in class.

"You're going to the gym in the afternoon, right?" he asks, even though he already knows the answer. "Hey," he says, poking Otabek, "You know I'm talking to you, right?"

There's no heat in his words. He's more than used to how deeply Otabek sleeps by now and knows not to ask anything he wants an answer to before Otabek has properly gotten up.

The first of Otabek's many alarms goes off and Yuri watches him grope for the off button. Yuri reaches over and hits snooze for him.

Yuri rolls away from Otabek and sits up slowly, taking inventory of his body. His knee feels a little stiff, but it's not bad enough that he shouldn't be able to manage a simple class. He's started to enjoy the luxury of being able to pick and choose what days he trains without having to feel the anxiety of losing out on time. So much of his life has felt like an hourglass about to run out, but he's starting to realize that time isn't his enemy. There's an enormousness of life that's stretched out before him that he never thought he'd have. He had never really taken the time to think about what he'd do after he stopped competing. He'd joked when he was younger that he'd just skate until he died, and as he got older it never got any easier to imagine what he'd do after retiring.

But now? Now he feels like a kid in a playground. There's so much _time_ stretched out before him, and he's beginning to truly understand how much freedom that grants him.

And today that freedom is taking him to an all levels drop in ballet class.

But first, he has to find his dance shoes.

* * *

Yuri shows up to class early so that he can fill out the required release forms and get familiar with the space before jumping right into the rigors of the barre and center work that he knows he's out of practice with.

He finds an empty spot by the wall to drop his bag and do some stretches to warm up while scoping out the rest of the students. A few of them clump together talking, while others seem content to stay on their own. It really does seem to be open to dancers of all levels. In one corner there's two people complaining about some new person in the corps of their company, while next to them another pair are trading tips on how to spot when turning. Considering he was never actually trained in ballet and hasn't set foot in a studio for over a year, he thinks he'll fit right in.

Class goes about as well as he expected it to. Lilia had made sure he was impeccably trained, but mostly only in what could be translated to figure skating, so his skills compared to people whose training has been focused solely on ballet are lacking. But he knows enough to keep up, and the challenge of not being the best is surprisingly thrilling. For the first time he's able to fade into the crowd.

After class the only thing that keeps him from completely collapsing onto the floor of the studio is his pride. He's been skating, but dancing is its own kind of beast and the movements don't translate exactly. His knee has gone from stiff to sore and his back is twinging, and he can already tell he's going to feel this class tomorrow.

He kind of loves it.

He had missed the challenge of learning new movements and pushing his body. He's been hesitant to do any serious skating training. He's only begun to really enjoy skating again, and he's not interested in challenging that right now. He really wants to take the time to actually enjoy the experience without all of the frustration he used to feel.

But this? This is new and challenging and even if he'll never be a professional dancer it feels good.

"You're new."

He looks up from where he's switching out his dance shoes for sneakers. The person standing over him is tall but otherwise generic-looking, with their hair tied back in the smallest of ponytails. Yuri doubts he'd ever be able to pick them out of a crowd.

"It is a drop in class," he says, before going back to tying his laces.

"You're new but you're good. Where'd you train?"

He can't figure out if this person is trying to reenact a bad ballet movie bullying scene or is just genuinely curious. He decides to try being generous for once.

"Nowhere. I'm not a dancer." He grabs his bag and stands. "Just did it for cross-training."

"There's no way someone gets that good from just cross-training. Believe me, I've seen all kinds come in for cross-training and they don't have technique like you."

Yuri debates what he wants to say. He's been relatively unbothered since moving to Almaty, and he'd like to keep it that way. He doesn't know if his name is still enough to attract hordes of fans, but he also doesn't want to find out.

The person shrugs. "Look, don't sweat it. I just wanted to say, you're good and I hope this isn't the last time we see you."

"Lilia Baranovskaya."

"What about her?"

"She trained me."

They let out a laugh. "No shit? And Baryshnikov's my dad."

Yuri's generosity is rapidly evaporating. "You asked. I answered. And now I'm leaving."

He turns to go and the person reaches out to stop him. "No, hey. I'm sorry. Look, you know how us dancers are. We spend all day thinking about pirouettes so we never get properly socialized. You're good. I'm an ass. I just wanted to welcome you to class."

Yuri rolls his eyes at the rhyme and pulls his arm away. "Welcome received. See you next week."

Or not.

If he takes another dance class, it won't be this one.

The person moves to block the door.

"My friends and I take a picture after every class. You should join us."

Yuri counts to ten in his head slowly. And then he counts back down to one. And then back up to ten again until he's calm enough to give a vaguely polite answer.

"Well, since you're holding me hostage."

"Great! Come on!"

He's dragged to one corner of the studio where a small group of people are waiting and stands dutifully just long enough for them to snap a single picture before heading for the door again.

"I'll tag you! What's your handle?"

"Yuri underscore Plisetsky," he calls over his shoulder, hoping that it'll be the last he sees of them.

* * *

The next week he picks a class on a different day only to run into that person and their friends again.

"You trained with Lilia Baranovskaya and I'm an asshole."

"Right on both counts," Yuri says icily, not bothering to look up from his stretch.

"So what's a big shot figure skater from Russia doing in Almaty?"

"Stretching and being annoyed by you."

"What Amir means is that he's sorry and we're honored to have you here," one of Amir's friends says. "I'm Sofia, this is Emira. It's nice to meet you. We're really sorry about Amir. He's friendly but badly trained."

"Like a dumb dog," Emira adds.

"I'm a cat person," Yuri retorts.

He doesn't get a chance to hear their responses because the teacher enters and they all scatter to the barre.

After class, Amir seeks him out again.

"We're going for drinks, if you want to come. I'll buy. My apology."

Yuri considers his offer. He doesn't particularly want to go for a drink with some random, TV extra-looking person that called him a liar, and he's tired from the class. But he thinks he likes this studio, so it's probably best to not make enemies quite so soon, and it's not as if he has anything better to do right now.

"Fine," he says. "But it's going to have to be a really good drink."

Amir's face lights up. "Great! We're meeting some friends, by the way."

* * *

Friends turns out to be only one friend, a school teacher named Tatyana, because, "Denis is being a wet blanket again and claims he has too many papers to grade to come out and have fun with his friends."

At least, that's what Tatyana says when she blows into the bar.

"Like he wasn't the one who assigned those papers to begin with. Oh, hello new person."

Yuri raises his glass to her. "Hello new person."

Amir, Emira, and Sofia all stand to greet her. Yuri ignores her hand when she offers it in favor of toasting her again.

"Tanya, this is Yuri." Amir claps Yuri on the shoulder. "He's that guy I told you trained with Lilia Baranovskaya."

Tatyana laughs as she settles into a seat. "Has Amir asked you to hook him up with an autograph yet? He has posters of her all over his—"

"Don't listen to her, Yuri," Amir insists. "Let me buy you another drink. Tanya, did you know Yuri has been to the Olympics?"

Tatyana snorts. "Since when is dancing an Olympic sport?"

"Oh, he's not a dancer," Sofia says. "He's a figure skater."

"He has _gold medals_ ," Emira adds.

Tatyana looks disbelieving.

Yuri downs what's left of his third drink. "Google me," he dares her.

He might be a bit tipsy. He's never been very good at holding his liquor, much to his chagrin. But for the first time in years he doesn't particularly care what people think about him, and he might actually be having fun with these people.

Tatyana rolls her eyes, but she does pull out her phone. "What's your name?"

"Yuri Plisetsky."

She types it into her phone and scrolls through the results.

"Okay, fine! You're a big deal."

Amir returns with another round for the table and passes the drinks around. Tatyana takes hers as she continues to scroll through her phone.

"This post says you're dead."

"I am!" Yuri takes another drink.

"So what's a dead Olympic figure skater doing in Almaty?"

"I moved in with my boyfriend."

It feels so freeing to say. Yuri and Otabek haven't exactly been hiding their relationship from the rest of the world, but neither of them have ever been interested in advertising it, either. But here is Yuri, in a bar getting drinks with people he barely knows, telling them all about it.

"You should tell him to come by. We need to make sure he's good enough for you."

"Yeah! What if he's some kind of creep?"

Yuri rolls his eyes at the idea that people who've only spent a few hours with him could possibly be a better judge of whether or not his boyfriend is a creep than he is.

He _does_ text Otabek to come by after he's done at the rink. But only because he's tired from practice and doesn't want to have to walk home.

"Hey," Sofia says. "Isn't there some skater that trains here?"

"Oh yeah, I saw something about him in the news or something a few years ago," Amir says. "Do you know him?"

Yuri hides his snicker by taking another drink. "I might."

Under an hour later, while Yuri's in the middle of telling Amir about how cold Lilia's hands always were when she was correcting him, Otabek walks through the door.

"Hey, Sofia," he says, "what was the name of that skater that trains here?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'd have to look it up."

She reaches for her phone, but Tatyana gets to hers first.

"Otabek Altin. Here, this is what he looks like." She holds her phone out for the table to see. "He's been to the Olympics, too. You have to know him, Yuri."

"Maybe." Yuri shrugs. "Oh, look. My boyfriend's here."

He waves Otabek over.

The entire table promptly loses their shit.

* * *

"I like your friends," Otabek says as Yuri crawls into bed that night.

Yuri doesn't know if he'd call them friends, exactly. They're just people who he (mostly, with the exception of Tatyana) sees in ballet. He doesn't hate having class with them, when he thinks about it. But he'd hardly call one trip to a bar the foundation of friendship.

But then, all it had taken was a single motorcycle ride for he and Otabek to become friends. So maybe Otabek's right, and there's more to it than Yuri had thought.

Yuri's just drunk enough that he doesn't feel like talking, so he just wraps his arms around Otabek and hums and hopes he understands.

* * *

Four Continents is in America this year. Yuri wants to go so that he can cheer Otabek on in person, but apparently when you have a job you can't just take off and follow your boyfriend around the globe. So Yuri stays in Almaty and teaches his classes and has a lunch with Emira and Sofia where he allows himself a moment of weakness, in which he acknowledges that yes he does miss Otabek, and thanks Sofia for reminding him of that fact.

He watches the short program, and then rewatches it when Amir bullies him into going over to Tatyana's so he can finally meet Denis, because they all want to see Otabek skate. It feels strange, having to explain the difference between a flip and a lutz and why a certain skater was scored the way they were. Yuri's never really spent time with anyone who wasn't somehow connected to figure skating in some way.

The night before the free skate, Otabek calls Yuri.

Well, there's a thirteen hour time difference, so it's actually about noon when Yuri's phone rings, but it's nighttime for Otabek.

And late.

Yuri had been up at four that morning so they could talk, so he hadn't been expecting another call so soon. He pushes away the hiss of anxiety at the back of his head that's trying to convince him that something catastrophic has happened.

"Hey, everything okay?"

"What did you think about when you skated my program?"

It takes a moment for Yuri to process that Otabek's asking about skating and not telling him anything bad. "What?"

"Before Rostelecom. You were showing off at the rink. You skated my free program. What were you thinking about when you did it?"

"Uh…" Yuri can vaguely remember trying to show off by running through the routine and then promptly dying because of how out of shape he was, but he definitely can't begin to explain what he was thinking when he did it, and he doesn't know if even _he_ understood his own thought process at the time. "I think I was just being an asshole."

"No, what were you thinking about the music? How did you interpret it?"

Yuri knows that Otabek's been struggling with his free skate this season, but he really doesn't understand how talking about this the night before he has to skate it is going to help.

He says as much.

"Please, Yura. Just tell me what you were thinking about when you skated it."

"Well it's a love song isn't it?" he says, trying to remember the slapdash meaning he'd assigned to the music. "I mean, it's sad or whatever because they're going to be apart but that doesn't mean they aren't going to be together again."

"But the song's about saying goodbye."

Yuri thinks about the lyrics, embedded in his memory from all the practices hes's sat through watching Otabek.

"Well, the person needed to go so instead of holding them back the singer let them go. But it doesn't mean they won't come back, right?"

Otabek's quiet for a long while, and Yuri wishes it was a video call so he could at least read his expression.

"Thank you, Yura," he finally says. "Good night."

"Night, Beka. Good luck tomorrow."

* * *

Their late night talk must have helped Otabek, because he takes the gold at Four Continents.

Yuri is back at Tatyana's, squeezed onto her small couch between her and Amir. He's in the middle of trying to explain scoring again to them when Otabek's score comes up on the screen.

The Grand Prix _and_ Four Continents, in a season when Otabek has struggled with his programs more than usual. He's earned it, and Yuri couldn't be prouder. Now he just has to focus on Worlds and then–well, Yuri doesn't want to jinx him.

* * *

Elena seeks him out at the rink the day after she and Otabek return from Four Continents. She looks exhausted as usual and, as always, has a giant coffee cup in hand.

He doesn't think anything of it. Between the skaters she coaches and his classes, it's not unusual for them to run into each other at the rink. He thinks they might be becoming friends.

It's weird.

"Otabek said you helped him with his free skate."

The words are polite. And yet, she still manages to give him the impression that he's done something to personally wrong her.

"Wow," he intones. "It's almost as if I know what I'm doing."

She gives him a very unamused look.

He'd been up late waiting for Otabek to get in, and now he's about to go teach a bunch of screaming six year olds so he's not in the mood to waste time deciphering her myriad of facial expressions today.

"I have class starting in…" He checks his phone. "Ten minutes. So unless you're here to learn how to skate…"

He trails off, hoping she'll take the hint and get lost.

She doesn't, so he extracts himself from the situation by walking away.

"Perhaps they didn't cut you up as much as I thought."

He stops and turns back to face Elena.

"What do you mean?"

Elena regards him carefully for a long while before answering. He really has to ask Otabek what the deal is with her and her love for Very Significant Looks sometime.

"Otabek doesn't understand what it's like," she says finally. "He's had to fight tooth and nail for every shred of success he has. But you and me, we had it different. Not easier, but different. He has had to build himself up into something great. But in Russia, they carve you up. And then they hand you the knife and you keep up their work. You have to, or you can't succeed. You have to cut away everything that isn't skating. And if you don't, well." She shrugs. "They have conveyor belts of replacements waiting in the wings to take your spot. Maybe not as much for you boys as us girls, but you can't say they didn't make you aware of just how expendable you were. But you put up with it because when you do right, as rarely as that is, it's golden. And I'm not talking about just the medals."

Yuri knows that she used to skate. Elena had been poised to be the next big name of Russian ladies figure skating, until she retired on the cusp of making a name for herself and left the country, never to return. He's never really thought about why before, or what might have happened to cause her to leave without so much as a glance back.

He realizes that that's exactly what he's done.

He looks at Elena, and for the first time, thinks he actually sees her.

"Is that what happened to you? Did they cut too much?"

Elena snorts. "Hell, no. One day I got tired of ripping myself into little pieces to fit their desires and that was that. The moment they realized I wasn't going to be manipulated anymore, it was over. That's how the conveyor belt works."

"Is that why you hate Yakov? Because of how he trains skaters?"

Elena shrugs.

"I never trained with Yakov. I had coaches like him, but I don't know him. I have no grudge against how he teaches his students. He has his methods. They get results. I don't care about that."

"Then why do you hate him so much?"

"You really want to know?" Elena takes a sip from her coffee. "He spilled my coffee. Ran right into me. My latte went everywhere. Completely ruined my favorite pair of shoes."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"That's it?" It's hard to imagine that her infamous grudge can really all be chalked up to a spilled drink and ruined shoes. "Otabek thinks you have some kind of...dramatic backstory with Yakov."

"They were my favorite shoes," she repeats before shrugging. "And you know how Otabek is. He likes his drama. Don't tell him. I hate to disappoint him."

Well, damn.

He thinks he might actually be starting to like her.

* * *

"What's so great about skating?" one of his students asks in the middle of class one day.

The question takes Yuri by surprise.

"Winning," he says automatically, because for so long that was all that had kept him skating. But it's not true. Not now and maybe, now that he thinks about it, ever. Maybe that was his problem. There's only so much that winning can do for you when the only person you're really competing against is yourself.

His students are clearly as disappointed in his answer as he is.

"Winning is nice," he corrects himself. "But it's not the best part of skating."

The six year-olds stare up at him, waiting for him to impart some kind of figure skating wisdom upon them.

"It's...nice learning how to do stuff."

Fuck, he's really screwing this up. It really shouldn't be that hard of a question to answer. He's been answering it for most of his life. He's just beginning to realize how often his answer was complete bullshit.

He thinks about Otabek struggling through the season, never giving up despite how hard it's clearly been, and the look on his face when he'd seen his scores at the Grand Prix Final and Four Continents, all of the struggle and hard work finally paying off. He thinks about Yuuri, coming back from that disastrous season with a free program that bared the entirety of his life on the ice.

He thinks about himself, at six and ten and fifteen and twenty-one, calling his grandpa to tell him how a competition went or practice, telling him how he was improving and getting better. He thinks about looking out from the ice and seeing the people, friends and strangers alike, and feeling their energy and taking that energy and adding it to his as he performed.

He thinks about Viktor flying to Japan on a whim after watching a crappy video of Yuuri skating _Stammi Vicino_. He thinks about the program he choreographed as both an apology and a promise to Otabek.

"It feels good learning new skills," he repeats, "and then being able to use those skills to connect with other people. The better you get, the more of yourself you can share with people through your skating."

He thinks that maybe this is why he started to hate it. At some point between the pressures of providing for his family and the weight of everyone else's ideas of who he was, he'd started to only see his scores and records and medal count.

He thinks about what Elena said, about how they were taught to carve themselves into champions, and how one day she'd gotten tired of whittling herself down to fit everyone else's expectations. He'd done that too, he realizes now. He'd carved himself hollow until he was a work of art, but he isn't art. He's just a person.

And it only took a pack of snot-nosed kids to make him realize that.

Shit, that's sad.

But he's getting better. Every time he steps on the ice, he's relearning how to do it as himself, fully, without ripping away parts of who he is.

"Hey! Are you chewing gum? What have I told you about chewing gum? You're going to choke and die. Go spit it out."

But first, he's going to make sure his students don't accidentally kill themselves.

* * *

"I think I'm going to skate at World's," Yuri says.

Otabek raises a skeptical brow at him from where he's stretching on the floor.

"The exhibition," Yuri clarifies. "Is that really how far you can stretch? I thought you were more flexible than that."

He stands from where he's been curled up on the couch to walk over and push Otabek into a deeper stretch.

"It should be more like that."

Otabek grunts in complaint but breathes into the stretch.

"Are you going to use one of your old routines?" Otabek asks when Yuri finally lets him relax.

"Don't know."

Yuri sprawls on the floor, all lazy and loose, forcing Otabek to maneuver around him. He thinks he might enjoy laying about while Otabek has to do all the work. He casts an appreciative look at Otabek's ass.

Yeah, he can definitely get used to this.

"Maybe I'll just do your free skate since you suck at it. Let people see what it should really look like."

"You should get Viktor to choreograph something for you."

Yuri gags.

"I cannot believe you'd even think that's okay to say." Yuri looks at him, disgusted by the betrayal of his suggestion. "I'd rather do that stupid cowboy routine my coach made me do when I was eight."

"You could bring back _Welcome to the Madness_ ," Otabek suggests.

Yuri gags again. "Please, I keep trying to forget I ever did that."

"Don't you mean that _we_ ever did that?"

Yuri flushes with warmth at the memory of chasing Otabek down through the streets of Barcelona to beg him for his help with the program.

"I really thought I was so cool when I did that."

Otabek relaxes out of his stretch and lies down on the floor, throwing an arm over Yuri. "You were cool," he insists, pressing a kiss to Yuri's collarbone.

"Are you saying you want to do that embarrassing routine with me at Worlds?"

"Of course," Otabek says, nuzzling into Yuri's hair. "We're friends, aren't we?"

* * *

Yuri runs through a few of his old routines before his class starts the next day, but none of them seem quite right for some reason. If he's going to do something new and not going to embarrass himself he'll have to come up with something soon.

He hangs around at the rink after he dismisses the kids for the day to try to work something out, and texts Otabek to bring him dinner when he comes for his session with Elena.

Yuri's no closer to figuring out what he's going to do when Otabek shows up with a bag of greasy fast food and a milkshake. The two of them move together in reverse, Yuri removing his skates and Otabek putting his on.

"Do you mind if I stay and watch?" Yuri asks, reaching for his food.

"I'd assumed you would," Otabek says. He pulls on his gloves and heads down to the ice to warm up while he waits for Elena to arrive.

Yuri watches him while he eats. He would have thought that he'd get sick of looking at Otabek skate, but he's still just as captivating today as he's been every other day that Yuri's sat in on his practices.

"That food will kill you."

Yuri looks over his shoulder to find Elena, her usual large coffee cup in hand. He rolls his eyes. "It's not like I'm competing anymore."

Elena makes a gagging sound. "You don't have to be competing for it to be disgusting."

He locks eyes with her and takes a large bite out of his burger. He maintains eye contact as he chews and swallows it. "Delicious."

"Are you actually going to be useful today, or are you just going to sit here eating your disgusting food?"

Yuri shrugs. "Depends on what Otabek wants."

Elena glances at the ice before turning back to Yuri. "I don't care what he wants. You have a good eye. Finish your garbage food and then come down and make yourself useful."

She turns to go down to meet Otabek.

"Wait."

She doesn't turn around, but she does at least stop walking.

"I need a program. For an exhibition. But I kind of...burned a lot of bridges. Do you know of anyone—"

"Anyone you haven't pissed off yet?"

Yuri swallows down his retort. She's right. What's left of his reputation isn't very good.

"Well, yeah."

"I know someone." She pulls a pen out of her purse and takes the sleeve off her coffee cup and scribbles a number down on it. "He's good. Knows all about how to tell a good story on the ice. Call him. He'll give you something good. Now hurry up and eat or get lost. I have a skater to train."

She tosses the cardboard sleeve at him, and Yuri has to scramble to grab it before it falls to the ground.

He looks at the number she gave him and curses. He knows this number. It's already in his phone. But she's right; he's good. And Yuri needs a routine.

He checks the time, he either has to call now or wait until tomorrow, and he needs all the time he can get.

Yuri grits his teeth and makes the call.

* * *

Otabek joins Yuri rinkside before he skates his exhibition at the end of Worlds.

It's a little overwhelming, after so long away from the spotlight. All the lights and the crowds and the anticipation. He's caught up in his head, thinking about how it never used to phase him, when Otabek prods him.

"You have to go," Otabek says, reaching to pull Yuri's unzipped jacket off his shoulders..

_"—two-time Olympic gold medalist and former World Champion, Yuri Plisetsky!"_

Shit, he's actually nervous, he thinks as he quickly removes his skate guards and hands them to Otabek.

Yuri takes a lap around the rink, taking the time to shake the nerves from his body.

He takes his starting position and then closes his eyes, takes a breath, and embraces the moment.

The music starts and he opens his eyes. He isn't afraid anymore. He knows what to do.

When Yuri had first made his senior debut, the comparisons between him and Viktor had been inevitable. Yuri had fought hard to force himself out of Viktor's shadow. Viktor was once the most loved man in all of figure skating. Yuri orchestrated his career to be the exact opposite of Viktor's. He'd never been interested in constantly surprising people or being loved. As far as he had been concerned, they could hate him for all he cared. But when he stepped onto the ice, everyone had known exactly what to expect from Yuri Plisetsky—nothing less than gold. He spent years crushing his competition, and not caring what he left in his wake. Viktor may have been a god, but Yuri had made himself into a monster.

But he's learning that not everything on the ice has to be about bloodsport. It can also be about love and joy. He'd lost that at some point, but he's starting to remember it.

He still hasn't made his grand retirement announcement. He's having fun being the boogeyman under everyone's bed. Just because he's redefining what skating is in his life, doesn't mean that the fact that the threat of him is still enough to scare his former competition isn't just a bit gratifying.

He'd taken up Elena's suggestion and called the choreographer she'd recommended. She'd been right, of course, in suggesting who she had. When Yuri had called to ask for help crafting a program for Worlds, Yuuri had asked not what it was for, but who Yuri wanted to be in it.

He'd always been infuriatingly insightful and supportive, even when Yuri hasn't deserved it.

It had taken a while for him to come up with an answer, but as he skates the program he had worked with Yuuri on, he knows he's made the right choice.

"I want to be myself," he had told Yuuri, and that's exactly who he is now. He's forgone any costume, instead choosing to wear his own clothes. His hair's in a low bun. There's no theatre here, no part for Yuri to play, no fight for acclaim. The program Yuuri choreographed won't win Yuri any medals, but that isn't what it's designed for. Instead, Yuri bares himself on the ice, throwing away everyone's expectations about who he is and what he has to offer the world. The singer sings about having a life that's been changed, and Yuri feels it with every fiber of his being.

He finishes with a feeling of exhilaration. He can't stop himself from grinning. The crowd is cheering for him, but for once Yuri doesn't care about that. When he'd been asked to skate at Worlds, his initial reaction had been to say no. But he also didn't want to stay away from skating forever, and he knew that he couldn't turn down opportunities en masse without them drying up entirely now that he wasn't competing. He's glad now that he'd agreed to it. He had fun on the ice, and it's good to remember what that feels like.

Otabek pulls him into a fierce hug as soon as he's off the ice, before Yuri even has a chance to get his skate guards on. They're not usually this affectionate in public, but Yuri thinks he might like it, so he tugs Otabek down for a quick kiss.

They finish clearing the ice, and it waits for the new world champion to take the stage.

"Good luck," Yuri says softly, right before Otabek skates out.

_"World champion, Otabek Altin of Kazakhstan!"_

Everyone's talking about how he's come back from his slump last year, going from a season of almosts to winning the Grand Prix, Four Continents, and Worlds. It's a well-deserved grand slam that Otabek has more than earned after years of being the underdog.

Otabek circles the rink once before taking his position at the center of the ice. Yuri can't help but think how well he wears the crown of victory. He has no idea what Otabek's program is. All Otabek would tell him was that it was something new and that he wanted Yuri to see it.

The music starts, and Yuri's heart chokes as he recognizes the beginning strain of the song from his viral video. It's not Yuri's routine, not exactly, but it's close enough that it has to be instantly recognizable to everyone watching. But Otabek's tweaked it, changed it here and there to suit his style. It's a melding of the two of them as skaters. There's Yuri in that combination spin there, but it's also emphatically Otabek in the way it's executed. Otabek skates something familiar yet new, pouring his heart out to an entire stadium of people.

Otabek skates, and it's undeniably them. It's their friendship, their love, all of the ups and downs of their relationship. It's their history and their future. _This is who we are,_ he says with each step on the ice. They aren't competitors or rivals anymore, but that doesn't mean that Yuri is gone from Otabek's life. Instead, the two are inexplicably intertwined.

It's the most public acknowledgment of their relationship that either of them has ever made. Yuri may have skated a love letter to himself, but Otabek skates a love letter to them and their relationship.

The stadium erupts in applause when he finishes. He takes his victory lap around the ice, waving at the fans in the stands and scooping up a few flowers and a teddy bear before leaving the ice.

"I love you," Yuri says as soon as Otabek is close enough to hear. "I can't believe you stole my program!"

Otabek laughs as he puts on his skate guards. "I love you too, Yura."

His laughter is contagious, and Yuri cups his face to kiss him.

It's been over a year since Yuri's fall and for the first time he finally feels whole again.

* * *

Yuri's never had a problem with interviews before. He gets asked a question, he answers it as cockily as he wants to, he keeps his reputation as the Russian punk that he's famous for. But having to answer the same questions week after week has begun to wear on him.

"Have you ever been to the Olympics?"

"Do you have a gold medal?"

"My sister says that old guy that trains here got third place at the Olympics."

Yuri looks over at the crowd of young faces around him.

"I have been to the Olympics," he says to them conspiratorially, as if it's some kind of grand secret between all of them and not common knowledge. "And I don't just have one gold medal. I have two." Three, if you count the team medal—and a total of four Olympic medals if you count the bronze team medal he has.

The kids in his class erupt at this news.

"Are you better than that old guy that trains here?"

Yuri holds back a snicker at the girl's repeated reference to Otabek as an "old guy".

"Well," he says, stalling because he's not actually sure how to answer that. He was better than Otabek. But Otabek is still training, still improving, still has a chance to break records. Yuri's days of setting records and winning medals are behind him.

"If he's just got one medal but you have two, then that must mean you're better than him."

Yuri laughs.

"When you put it that way, I am better than him," Yuri admits. "But he's still competing, so he has plenty of time to catch up. I'm retired now."

It's the first time he's said the word out loud, and it's to a gang of seven year-olds who don't understand the significance of it.

"Well you can't be that good if you're retired!"

Yuri rolls his eyes. "Okay, that's enough talking. Is everyone ready? We're starting class now." When his students don't immediately calm down he adds, "If you're all good I'll show you the routine I won the Olympics with."

The kids fall into line and Yuri starts a quick review of what they did last class before moving on. He only has to remind them to pay attention three times and so, true to his word, he ends class a little early and has them sit in the stands for his promised performance.

There's no music, no crowds. Just Yuri and the ice and the first short program he ever skated on Olympic ice. He closes his eyes and remembers the pressure of everyone's expectations, the weight of the judge's gazes on him, the frustration over every little mistake and slip up that cost him valuable points.

It could have been so different, if he'd just allowed himself to enjoy the experience. But he can't change the past. All he can do is remember it, and move forward.

He opens his eyes, gives a wink to his class, and skates. It's far from his best, his triples and quads are traded out for doubles, but it's fun and his class cheers with every jump he lands and every spin he completes.

He finishes his program with a flourish as his class erupts in applause and cheers. He makes a point of giving them a big, dramatic bow, before dismissing them for the week.

He's had a few offers to join some shows since Worlds, a few TV networks want him to do commentary for them. Yuri isn't sure if he's going to take any of them up on the offers. Right now he's just having fun teaching his classes and feeding Otabek his terrible cooking. He can figure everything else out later.

* * *

These are the things Yuri Plisetsky knows about the world:

Everyone wants to see him make a comeback, because it's sad that such an outstanding career died without so much as a whimper.

No one wants to see him make a comeback, because he's a monster on the ice and no one else's career would survive.

The world thinks his life, as it is now, is quiet and sad compared to what it could have been.

These are the things Yuri knows about himself:

  1. He likes teaching kids who have no idea who he is how to skate.
  2. He is in love with his best friend.
  3. He's been putting his life back together, and he thinks he might like what he's making of it. It's nothing like it was before but it's a start, a beginning. And he can work with that.



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading!


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